This metric measures the exact seconds a caller spends listening to queue music or announcements before being connected to a live agent. Telecom managers track average hold time to optimize staffing levels and adjust automatic call distributor routing. High values directly correlate with increased abandonment rates and poor customer satisfaction scores.
Our average hold time spiked to four minutes after the outage, so we need all hands on the phones.
Also heard as
- queue time
Related terms
Call center
A centralized facility equipped to handle large volumes of inbound or outbound telephone requests.
ACD
A telephony system that answers incoming calls and routes them to a specific agent or department based on predefined rules.
BHCA
Busy-Hour Call Attempts, a metric used to evaluate the peak processing capacity of a telephone exchange.