First response time

First response time (FRT) is how long a customer waits between sending a message and receiving the first reply. It is the support metric most tightly linked to how customers rate an interaction, because the wait is the part they feel directly, before anything has been resolved.

How it is measured

FRT is the elapsed time from the customer's first message to the first reply from your side, usually reported as a median or an average per channel and per period. Many teams exclude automated acknowledgements ("we received your message") and count only a substantive reply; be explicit about which definition you use, because the two numbers differ by hours.

Typical targets by channel

Expectations depend on the channel. Live chat and messaging apps are judged in seconds to minutes; email is judged in hours. An AI agent collapses the difference, because it answers every channel at the same speed and at every hour.

How AI customer support changes FRT

An AI agent replies immediately, in parallel, around the clock, so FRT for the conversations it handles drops to seconds. The metric to watch afterwards is the FRT for conversations that reach a human after escalation: those arrive with a transcript and context, so the human reply is faster too, but they still need a staffed queue.

Related metrics

• Resolution rate: whether the conversation was actually solved, not just answered.
• Ticket deflection: how many conversations never needed a human.
• CSAT: how the customer rated the interaction.