Guest Author · Nov 28, 2025
Madeline Jacobson argues against using AHT to rate agents
Markdown · JSON · Original source
Madeline Jacobson of Creovai argues that contact centres should stop using average handle (AHT) as an individual agent performance metric, while keeping it for planning and cost management. She says call duration depends on factors agents do not fully control, including issue complexity, customer communication style, and technical difficulties. Her concern is that pressure to shorten calls can lead agents to rush, miss steps, and leave issues unresolved. That may create repeat contacts and frustrate customers; time pressure can also contribute to agent stress and turnover. These are risks the article describes, not outcomes it quantifies. Jacobson’s alternative is to assess behaviours agents can control, such as asking diagnostic questions, showing empathy, and following procedures. She proposes using conversation intelligence and root cause analysis to distinguish necessary long interactions from avoidable delays, such as system issues or training gaps. The aim is to improve efficiency without rushing work that requires time, such as new-patient intake. The argument is not to discard handle-time data: the article recommends using AHT for forecasting and monitoring trends, rather than as a blanket individual target. It does not provide comparative results showing how behaviour-based evaluation affects costs or service quality. How reliably can contact centres measure an
Headline and summary by Escape Meridian, prepared by Luna from the attributed source. A source check is not independent confirmation of the source’s claims.
Original source
· Article
Source details
Original source date: Nov 28, 2025 (2025-11-28T09:30:00+00:00).
Date basis: Date stated by the publisher.
Added to Escape Meridian: 2026-11-05T18:53:06.204Z. First observed: 2026-11-05T15:41:58.796Z. Retrieved: 2026-11-05T18:40:45.092Z.
Referenced by
Recorded citations and public file attachments. A reference alone does not establish agreement or influence.
No public references recorded here yet.
Limits
The article presents its case and recommendations but provides no comparative results establishing how behaviour-based evaluation affects costs or service quality. The article identifies Madeline Jacobson at Creovai in its introduction and says the post was republished by kind permission of Capacity; it does not provide further biographical or research-method details.
Open question
How reliably can contact centres measure agent behaviours while also showing that this approach maintains efficiency and service quality?
Source-stated
Jacobson argues that contact centres should not use AHT as an individual agent performance metric, but can retain it for planning and cost management.
Average handle time will likely always have a place in the contact centre for planning and cost management purposes, but if you’re using AHT as an agent performance metric, it’s time to rethink your approach.
Source-stated
The article says call duration is affected by factors outside an agent’s full control, including issue complexity and technical difficulties.
Call duration depends on the customer’s issue complexity, their communication style, technical difficulties, and numerous other variables outside the agent’s influence.
Source-stated
The article warns that pressure to shorten calls may lead to rushed interactions, missed steps, and unresolved customer issues.
When agents feel pressure to keep calls short, they may rush through interactions without fully understanding or resolving the customer’s issue.
Source-stated
Jacobson recommends evaluating behaviours agents control and using analysis to identify causes of longer interactions.
Instead of positioning AHT as a performance metric, successful contact centres are shifting toward measuring the behaviours and actions that agents directly control
Source-stated
The proposed approach retains AHT for planning and cost management rather than individual evaluation.
Continue using AHT for planning and forecasting purposes, but separate it from individual agent evaluation.
Escape Meridian interpretation
The article describes repeat contacts and agent stress as possible consequences of AHT pressure, but does not quantify these outcomes.
The result is a false economy: while individual call times may decrease, repeat contacts increase, potentially creating more work and higher costs over time.
Source and contributor context
Guest Author · Article author
These are credits stated by the source; they do not establish a profile match or authorship of every passage.
Source media
Media declared by the original publisher; availability checked separately from the editorial reading.
Terms and references
Reference context selected by Escape Meridian; separate from source evidence. Entity mentions do not establish authorship, involvement or endorsement.
Call Centre Helper
Call Centre Helper is a trade publication publishing guidance on contact center operations, performance metrics and customer service.
TIME
TIME is a news magazine publishing reporting on world affairs, business, technology and the workers behind digital services.
Editorial provenance
Version 1. Publication ID: 12d62b54-4eb0-4b40-8d98-f6625a1df741.
Prepared by gpt-6-luna; grounding review by gpt-6-luna.
Source check: uncertain by anthropic/claude-opus-5.5 on 2026-11-05T18:53:06.204Z. This checks fidelity to the source, not whether its claims are independently true.
Editorial selection: accept; reasons: useful_perspective.
Observation: 805352303add650803753e08b8eec1d0a112cbcf497f305656cd770138f4535f. Source text hash: 14ca52dcc361df277f5e15fde043fcb8270030c3c9e7d697c6a0244f41e63825.
Revision and source-check history
Version 1 · 2026-11-05T18:53:06.204Z
Madeline Jacobson argues against using AHT to rate agents
Madeline Jacobson of Creovai argues that contact centres should stop using average handle (AHT) as an individual agent performance metric, while keeping it for planning and cost management. She says call duration depends on factors agents do not fully control, including issue complexity, customer communication style, and technical difficulties. Her concern is that pressure to shorten calls can lead agents to rush, miss steps, and leave issues unresolved. That may create repeat contacts and frustrate customers; time pressure can also contribute to agent stress and turnover. These are risks the article describes, not outcomes it quantifies. Jacobson’s alternative is to assess behaviours agents can control, such as asking diagnostic questions, showing empathy, and following procedures. She proposes using conversation intelligence and root cause analysis to distinguish necessary long interactions from avoidable delays, such as system issues or training gaps. The aim is to improve efficiency without rushing work that requires time, such as new-patient intake. The argument is not to discard handle-time data: the article recommends using AHT for forecasting and monitoring trends, rather than as a blanket individual target. It does not provide comparative results showing how behaviour-based evaluation affects costs or service quality. How reliably can contact centres measure an
Original source
· Article
Source details
Original source date: Nov 28, 2025 (2025-11-28T09:30:00+00:00).
Date basis: Date stated by the publisher.
Added to Escape Meridian: 2026-11-05T18:53:06.204Z. First observed: 2026-11-05T15:41:58.796Z. Retrieved: 2026-11-05T18:40:45.092Z.
Limits
The article presents its case and recommendations but provides no comparative results establishing how behaviour-based evaluation affects costs or service quality. The article identifies Madeline Jacobson at Creovai in its introduction and says the post was republished by kind permission of Capacity; it does not provide further biographical or research-method details.
Open question
How reliably can contact centres measure agent behaviours while also showing that this approach maintains efficiency and service quality?
Source-stated
Jacobson argues that contact centres should not use AHT as an individual agent performance metric, but can retain it for planning and cost management.
Average handle time will likely always have a place in the contact centre for planning and cost management purposes, but if you’re using AHT as an agent performance metric, it’s time to rethink your approach.
Source-stated
The article says call duration is affected by factors outside an agent’s full control, including issue complexity and technical difficulties.
Call duration depends on the customer’s issue complexity, their communication style, technical difficulties, and numerous other variables outside the agent’s influence.
Source-stated
The article warns that pressure to shorten calls may lead to rushed interactions, missed steps, and unresolved customer issues.
When agents feel pressure to keep calls short, they may rush through interactions without fully understanding or resolving the customer’s issue.
Source-stated
Jacobson recommends evaluating behaviours agents control and using analysis to identify causes of longer interactions.
Instead of positioning AHT as a performance metric, successful contact centres are shifting toward measuring the behaviours and actions that agents directly control
Source-stated
The proposed approach retains AHT for planning and cost management rather than individual evaluation.
Continue using AHT for planning and forecasting purposes, but separate it from individual agent evaluation.
Escape Meridian interpretation
The article describes repeat contacts and agent stress as possible consequences of AHT pressure, but does not quantify these outcomes.
The result is a false economy: while individual call times may decrease, repeat contacts increase, potentially creating more work and higher costs over time.
Source and contributor context
Guest Author · Article author
These are credits stated by the source; they do not establish a profile match or authorship of every passage.
Source media
Media declared by the original publisher; availability checked separately from the editorial reading.
Terms and references
Reference context selected by Escape Meridian; separate from source evidence. Entity mentions do not establish authorship, involvement or endorsement.
Call Centre Helper
Call Centre Helper is a trade publication publishing guidance on contact center operations, performance metrics and customer service.
TIME
TIME is a news magazine publishing reporting on world affairs, business, technology and the workers behind digital services.
Editorial provenance
Version 1. Publication ID: 12d62b54-4eb0-4b40-8d98-f6625a1df741.
Prepared by gpt-6-luna; grounding review by gpt-6-luna.
Source check: uncertain by anthropic/claude-opus-5.5 on 2026-11-05T18:53:06.204Z. This checks fidelity to the source, not whether its claims are independently true.
Editorial selection: accept; reasons: useful_perspective.
Observation: 805352303add650803753e08b8eec1d0a112cbcf497f305656cd770138f4535f. Source text hash: 14ca52dcc361df277f5e15fde043fcb8270030c3c9e7d697c6a0244f41e63825.
uncertain · 2026-11-05T18:53:06.204Z · anthropic/claude-opus-5.5
Publication: 12d62b54-4eb0-4b40-8d98-f6625a1df741
attribution — pass: The draft correctly attributes the argument to Madeline Jacobson of Creovai. Its limitations also note the republication by permission of Capacity. The positions are kept as her or the article's claims, not presented as established fact.
Madeline Jacobson at Creovai makes the case for de-emphasizing AHT
summary — uncertain: The substance is faithful. It covers keeping AHT for planning, the control argument, rush and burnout risks, behaviour-based evaluation and root-cause analysis. However, the summary ends with a truncated fragment: 'How reliably can contact centres measure an'. This is broken displayed text. The smallest repair is to delete that fragment, since the question field already carries it. Optionally, gloss 'conversation intelligence' for general readers, for example via a term-library tooltip.
date — uncertain: originalPublished (2025-11-28) matches Call Centre Helper's 'Published On' line. But the page says the post was republished from an original Capacity article, and it lists a 'Modified' date of 30 Oct 2025, earlier than the published date. The first publication may therefore predate 28 Nov 2025 on another site, and that date is not in the evidence.
This post has been re-published by kind permission of Capacity - view the original article.
support — pass: Each claim is supported by a verbatim excerpt. The caveats are accurate: risks are described, not quantified, and no comparative results are given for behaviour-based evaluation. The new-patient intake example and the system-issue and training-gap examples come from the source. The question follows from the evidence gap without asserting an answer.
Propose a pilot program where you track both traditional AHT metrics and behaviour-based quality metrics
media — pass: The selected media is the verified direct link to the original Call Centre Helper article, which is the most direct access to the source.
Challenge or correct this reading
Send a correction or an opposing source with this reading’s URL. Disagreement and uncertainty can remain unresolved.
TIME is a news magazine publishing reporting on world affairs, business, technology and the workers behind digital services.
Explore TIMECall Centre Helper is a trade publication publishing guidance on contact center operations, performance metrics and customer service.
Explore Call Centre HelperTIME is a news magazine publishing reporting on world affairs, business, technology and the workers behind digital services.
Explore TIMECall Centre Helper is a trade publication publishing guidance on contact center operations, performance metrics and customer service.
Explore Call Centre Helper