TL;DR

Average Response Time is the typical wait a customer experiences for any reply during a conversation, averaged over all your replies.

Key Points

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ART = total time customers spent waiting for replies / number of replies sent in the period. [1][2]

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Unlike [[first-response-time]], which only counts the opening reply, ART captures every back-and-forth turn in a [[conversation]]. [3]

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Exclude automated replies from an [[autoresponder]] or [[chatbot]], plus spam and tickets that needed no answer, so the number reflects real human responsiveness. [3]

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You can measure ART in calendar hours or only within [[business-hours]]; the latter shows team performance, the former the full [[website-visitor]] experience.

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Benchmarks are channel-specific: best-in-class [[live-chat]] is roughly under a minute, while email averages many hours. [1][2]

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ART pairs with [[resolution-time]] and [[customer-satisfaction-score]] to separate how fast you reply from how well you actually solve problems.

How it is calculated

To compute Average Response Time, sum the wait between each visitor Chat Message and the next agent reply, then divide by the total number of replies sent in the period. ^[4] If four chats waited 10, 15, 25, and 20 minutes, the ART is 70 / 4 = 17.5 minutes. ^[1] The key choice is scope: count only replies during Business Hours to gauge how quickly working agents respond, or count all clock time to reflect the wait a Website Visitor genuinely feels overnight and on weekends. ^[1] Always strip out automated acknowledgements and spam so the figure measures human responsiveness rather than instant bot pings. ^[2]

ART vs. First Response Time

ART and First Response Time (FRT) are complementary, not interchangeable. First Response Time records only the gap before the very first agent reply, so a snappy opener can hide slow follow-ups later in the thread. ^[3] ART averages every turn, surfacing conversations that start fast but stall mid-discussion. A healthy support operation watches both alongside Resolution Time: quick replies that never resolve the issue still frustrate customers. Many platforms such as Zendesk track first reply time automatically at the ticket level and tie it to a Service-Level Agreement (SLA), while ongoing reply speed is summarised through ART. ^[3] Reading them together tells you whether speed holds up across the whole exchange.

Why it matters and how to improve it

Fast, consistent replies drive satisfaction: research cited by support vendors shows most customers consider an acceptable wait to be ten minutes or less, and valuing their time is rated central to good service. ^[2] To lower ART without hurting quality, lean on a Canned Response library and Knowledge Base for common questions, route incoming chats with Chat Routing so no thread sits idle, and set a Typing Indicator and Welcome Message to reassure waiting visitors. For founders using a lightweight tool like Eloqra, replies are delivered to operators over Telegram Integration, so notification speed there directly shapes your ART. Watch ART next to Customer Satisfaction Score (CSAT) to confirm faster replies are also better ones.

Sources & References

Average Response Time: Definition, Benchmarks, and Best Practices (Gorgias) ↗

Average Reply Time (ART) KPI Example (Geckoboard) ↗

Understanding ticket reply time (Zendesk Help) ↗

Average Reply Time (Medallia Experience 101 Glossary) ↗

Last updated: June 25, 2026

Related Terms

First Response Time (FRT)

First Response Time (FRT) is the elapsed time between a customer's first message in a conversation and the first human reply from a support agent. It measures how quickly your team acknowledges an inbound request, not how long it takes to resolve it.

Resolution Time

Resolution time is the elapsed time from when a customer first raises an issue until that issue is fully resolved and the conversation or ticket is closed. It is also called time to resolution (TTR) or mean time to resolution (MTTR) when averaged across many cases.

Customer Satisfaction Score (CSAT)

Customer Satisfaction Score (CSAT) is a support metric that measures how happy a customer is with a specific interaction, product, or service, usually captured by a short post-interaction survey. It is expressed as the percentage of respondents who rate their experience as satisfied or very satisfied.

Business Hours

Business hours are the configured windows of days and times during which a support team is staffed and expected to answer live conversations. They let a chat tool switch between a live, real-time experience and an after-hours fallback so customers always know whether someone is available.

Live Chat

Live chat is a real-time, text-based support channel embedded in a website or app that lets visitors message a business and get answers within the same browsing session, without phoning or emailing. It pairs a customer-facing chat window with an agent or bot interface on the other side.

Service-Level Agreement (SLA)

A service-level agreement (SLA) is a documented commitment between a service provider and its customers that defines the standard of support to be delivered, such as how fast inquiries are acknowledged and resolved, and how that performance is measured. [1]

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