First Response Time
First Response Time (FRT) is the time between the customer's first message and the business's first reply. It is one of the metrics with the greatest influence on perceived service: in chat, people expect replies in minutes, not hours. It is measured as the mean or median over a period's new conversations, distinguishing between automated and human replies.
FRT weighs so much because it sets the first impression and, in sales contexts, decides the sale: someone writing to several suppliers often buys from the first to reply. It needs measuring carefully: the mean is sensitive to extreme cases, so it's paired with the median or a percentile; and the time of the first automated reply must be separated from the time of human pickup, because they measure different things and tell different service stories.
To lower it, work on three fronts: automating the first contact, with an assistant that replies instantly and collects the useful information; organizing the team, with a shared inbox, notifications and clear shifts on who replies; and reducing the load, moving recurring questions to automated replies so agents focus on new cases. Measuring FRT by time slot reveals coverage gaps.
SendApp's AI assistant answers the first message within seconds at any hour, while the shared inbox with real-time notifications helps the team keep pickup time low on cases that need a human.
Frequently asked questions
From theory to practice
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