Glossary

First response time (FRT): what it is and what it means for you as a buyer

Also called: First reply time, FRT, Time to first response. Last reviewed .

First response time (FRT) is how long a customer waits between sending a message and getting the first reply from a person. It is usually reported as an average or a median for a day or a week, counted in business hours or in clock hours.

What it means for you as a buyer

First response time is the number your customers feel first. A customer who hears back in ten minutes stops refreshing their inbox; one who waits overnight sends a second email, then calls: the extra effort a customer effort score picks up. Check two things in any report: automatic "we got your message" emails should not count, and you need to know whether the clock runs in business hours or around the clock. A business-hours report can look perfect while customers wait all night. If your customers write in the evening, an agent working your overnight hours from Davao changes this number more than any other.

A worked example with numbers

In this example morning, three emails wait 12, 30 and 10 minutes for a human reply: an average of about 17 minutes and a median of 12.

Example: first response time for three emails
Email arrived First reply sent Wait
9:00 am 9:12 am 12 minutes
9:20 am 9:50 am 30 minutes
10:05 am 10:15 am 10 minutes

The average is (12 + 30 + 10) รท 3 = about 17 minutes. The median, the middle value, is often fairer, because one slow reply pulls the average up.

Now an evening email that arrives at 6:00 pm and gets no reply until 9:00 am. In clock hours that is a 15-hour wait; in business hours it counts as zero, because the office was closed. Same customer, same wait, two very different reports. With an agent on your overnight shift, the same email can be answered in minutes.

Where this appears in our pricing or process

First response time is not on the provider's confirmed reporting, so agree on the call to add it to your sheet from your own help desk. The provider gives you live reporting sheets, updated in real time, covering attendance, productivity, performance targets and campaign results, and the team lead supervises the agent day to day. The who-manages section of the how-it-works page shows how the results reach you, and the time-zone tool on the home page shows which of your hours an agent in Davao can cover.

Questions buyers ask

Is a fast first reply the same as a solved problem?

No. A quick reply that says nothing useful just adds a step. Read first response time next to the quality lines on the QA scorecard.

  • QA scorecard
    A QA scorecard grades a sample of an agent's real tickets or calls against your rules. What to ask for, with a worked example of a weekly scorecard.
  • Average handle time (AHT)
    Average handle time is the average time an agent spends on one contact, wrap-up included. How to use it to size a seat, with a worked example.
  • Customer effort score (CES)
    Customer effort score asks one question: how easy was it to get your issue handled? How to read it, and what an agent can fix, with a worked example.

How the team lead checks your agent's work

Sources

  1. Performance indicator, Wikipedia, checked 7 November 2026.

We publish what the provider has confirmed in writing. If a figure is not here, we have not been able to confirm it.