Response Time

What it means

Response time is the average elapsed time between any customer message and the next agent or AI reply across all messages in a conversation, not just the opening exchange. A conversation with a 30-second FRT can still have poor response time if the agent takes 4 hours to reply to follow-up messages. Response time is typically reported as median or average per channel, per agent, and per time period (business hours vs. after hours). Median is often more meaningful than average for response time because a few very slow responses skew averages significantly. For ecommerce support, response time expectations vary sharply by channel and context: live chat conversations have a sub-2-minute expectation for every reply; email conversations are usually asynchronous with a 2–4 hour expectation per reply during business hours; social DMs sit somewhere in between. AI agents make response time largely irrelevant for AI-handled conversations — every reply is instantaneous regardless of volume or time of day. For human-handled conversations, response time is a function of agent availability, queue size, and ticket complexity. Response time is related to but distinct from average handle time (total active time on a ticket) and resolution time (total time from ticket creation to close). Response time measures the speed of each exchange; handle time measures total active work; resolution time measures the overall lifecycle.