What is first response time?
First response time (FRT) is the elapsed time between when a customer opens a conversation and when an agent sends the first reply. It is the single most-watched metric in inbound support because it correlates tightly with satisfaction and conversion.
How it is measured
The clock starts at the timestamp of the customer's first message. The clock stops when an agent sends a non-auto reply. Automated greetings and out-of-office messages do not stop the clock by default; most teams configure that explicitly.
Channel benchmarks
Live chat: under 1 minute for excellent, under 3 minutes acceptable. Email tickets: under 1 hour during business hours is excellent, under 24 hours acceptable. Phone calls: under 30 seconds before a human picks up. Slower than these and abandonment rates climb sharply.
Business hours vs raw time
A customer who emails at 9pm and gets a reply at 9am has waited 12 hours of wall-clock time but zero hours of business time. Most teams report FRT in business hours so a global 24-hour comparison is fair. message.com's Reports API exposes both.
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