Tips for lowering first reply time

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<p id="docs-hc-snippet" style="display: none;">Customer support can be a tough job, but the building blocks of meeting your customer's expectations are actually quite straightforward. Inquiries to your team must be resolved in an accurate and helpful way, and the faster you respond, the better.</p>

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<p class="p">Customer support can be a tough job, but the building blocks of meeting your customer's
expectations are actually quite straightforward. Inquiries to your team must be resolved
in an accurate and helpful way, and the faster you respond, the better. </p>
<p class="p">There's a lot to pay attention to when looking at your ticket stats, but first reply time
(FRT) is high up there. FRT is a key metric that helps your business understand the
responsiveness of your customer support agents. In fact, Zendesk's data team has found
that decreasing FRT correlates with an increasing customer satisfaction rating, making
lower FRT a crucial goal for any business. </p>
<p class="p">While FRT naturally fluctuates based on ticket volume, proactive strategies can minimize
response times even during peak periods. This article gives you some tips for lowering
FRT in different Zendesk channels. </p>
<p class="p">This article contains the following topics: </p>
<ul class="ul" id="zug_first_reply_time_tips__ul_wvy_ygp_tzb">
<li class="li"><a class="xref" href="#topic_wjn_wgp_tzb">Lowering first reply time for email tickets</a></li>
<li class="li"><a class="xref" href="#topic_wwm_xgp_tzb">Lowering first reply time for messaging</a></li>
</ul>
<p class="p">Related article: </p>
<ul class="ul" id="zug_first_reply_time_tips__ul_y5j_bhp_tzb">
<li class="li">
<a class="xref" href="https://support.zendesk.com/hc/en-us/articles/4408821871642" target="_blank">Understanding ticket reply time</a>
</li>
</ul>
</div>
<div aria-labelledby="ariaid-title2" class="topic nested1" id="topic_wjn_wgp_tzb">
<h2 class="title topictitle2" id="ariaid-title2">Lowering first reply time for email tickets</h2>
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<p class="p">In Zendesk Support, FRT is calculated as the time between when a ticket was created
to the time the first public comment from an agent is made on that ticket. If the
ticket is solved without any public comment at all, it doesn't contribute to your
FRT metrics. </p>
<p class="p">When you see that FRT start to rise, take notice, and take advantage of some of these
tips to help bring it back down: </p>
<ul class="ul" id="topic_wjn_wgp_tzb__ul_opd_ghp_tzb">
<li class="li">
<strong class="ph b">Self-service:</strong> When your customers help themselves, you don't need to
worry about FRT. Not sure how to start? Keep track of your top issues, and write
articles based on those making sure that agents are well trained and refreshed
on those articles. Many customers now go online to serve themselves, and you
should do your best to meet them there. Build up your help center, and make sure
your agents are active there to quickly answer questions from your community. </li>
<li class="li">
<strong class="ph b">Trend or outlier:</strong> Check your ticket volume when looking at changes to
your first response. Have you had a big surge leading up to the increase in FRT?
Start with the <a class="xref" href="https://support.zendesk.com/hc/en-us/articles/4408835846810#topic_hlj_xbj_z3b" target="_blank">Tickets</a> and <a class="xref" href="https://support.zendesk.com/hc/en-us/articles/4408835846810#topic_zd3_ybj_z3b" target="_blank">Efficiency</a> tabs of the Zendesk Support
dashboard. If you had a temporary surge from a new product launch or a major
service incident, then this might not be a sign of a worrying trend. Even so, if
you can predict these surges, that's a great time to bring a bit of extra help
on board. At Zendesk, when we have a new product launch, we like to bring in the
responsible product team and developers to help out. </li>
<li class="li">
<strong class="ph b">Look at your support hours:</strong> Do you know when you get most of your
tickets? A quick look at the <strong class="ph b">Tickets created by hour</strong> report on the <a class="xref" href="https://support.zendesk.com/hc/en-us/articles/4408835846810#topic_hlj_xbj_z3b" target="_blank">Tickets</a> tab of the Zendesk Support
dashboard can help you make sure that you have support online and ready to go
when your customers are. If you're thinking about making the jump to
round-the-clock support, see the <a class="xref" href="https://www.zendesk.com/blog/improve-remote-support-follow-sun-model/?_ga=2.57684586.1330222813.1702300595-619784293.1664373900" target="_blank">What is the follow-the-sun model? Advantages
+ strategy</a> white paper. </li>
<li class="li">
<strong class="ph b">Problems and incidents:</strong> When something goes wrong, it's critical to
quickly identify and address emerging issues. Getting back to your customers
quickly, letting them know you're aware and working on a problem, is key to
turning something unfortunate into an opportunity to give them a positive
experience interacting with your company. We use problem and incident ticket
types extensively (<a class="xref" href="https://support.zendesk.com/hc/en-us/articles/4408829669274" target="_blank">here are some views and triggers</a> we've
set up to keep track of them) so that we can get back to affected customers as
fast as possible and let them know when we've resolved an issue. It's a great
and easy way for your agents to get an early jump on these tickets. </li>
</ul>
<p class="p">For more information about measuring Support ticket first reply time, see: </p>
<ul class="ul" id="topic_wjn_wgp_tzb__ul_qgj_p3p_tzb">
<li class="li">
<a class="xref" href="https://support.zendesk.com/hc/en-us/articles/4408835846810#topic_zd3_ybj_z3b" target="_blank">Analyzing your Support ticket activity and
agent performance</a>
</li>
<li class="li">
<a class="xref" href="https://support.zendesk.com/hc/en-us/articles/4408820652058" target="_blank">Reporting on first reply time</a>
</li>
<li class="li">
<a class="xref" href="https://support.zendesk.com/hc/en-us/articles/4408827693594" target="_blank">Metrics and attributes for Zendesk
Support</a>
</li>
</ul>
</div>
</div>
<div aria-labelledby="ariaid-title3" class="topic nested1" id="topic_wwm_xgp_tzb">
<h2 class="title topictitle2" id="ariaid-title3">Lowering first reply time for messaging</h2>
<div class="body">
<p class="p">In a real-time channel such as messaging, agent responsiveness is critical. FRT is
tracked in seconds and should be kept as low as possible. </p>
<p class="p">Taking advantage of the features listed below can help you lower FRT for messaging: </p>
<ul class="ul" id="topic_wwm_xgp_tzb__ul_k4z_v3p_tzb">
<li class="li">
<strong class="ph b">Unrouted time:</strong> The following features reduce the time customers spend
waiting in the queue before a conversation gets assigned to an agent. <ul class="ul" id="topic_wwm_xgp_tzb__ul_w5b_x3p_tzb">
<li class="li">
<a class="xref" href="https://support.zendesk.com/hc/en-us/articles/9496171412378" target="_blank">Configure an inactivity timer</a>
to release an agent’s bandwidth faster.</li>
<li class="li">
<a class="xref" href="https://support.zendesk.com/hc/en-us/articles/4408842938522" target="_blank">Set business hours</a> to control
the inflow of the incoming ticket volume based on your support
hours.</li>
</ul>
</li>
<li class="li">
<strong class="ph b">Agent reaction time:</strong> The following features help agents accept
conversations faster. <ul class="ul" id="topic_wwm_xgp_tzb__ul_sny_y3p_tzb">
<li class="li">
<a class="xref" href="https://support.zendesk.com/hc/en-us/articles/6009407849754" target="_blank">Turn on auto accept</a>.
Automatically assign the conversation to an agent with no explicit need
to click the Accept button. </li>
<li class="li">
<a class="xref" href="https://support.zendesk.com/hc/en-us/articles/5020833543450#topic_trj_mz1_q5" target="_blank">Turn on hybrid assignment
mode</a>. If you use the assigned routing method, hybrid mode lets
agents serve beyond their capacity on messaging. </li>
</ul>
</li>
<li class="li">
<strong class="ph b">Agent typing time:</strong> The following features help agents craft their
messages to customers faster. <ul class="ul" id="topic_wwm_xgp_tzb__ul_plj_z3p_tzb">
<li class="li">
<a class="xref" href="https://support.zendesk.com/hc/en-us/articles/4408844187034" target="_blank">Create a macro</a> for the first
reply to reduce the time an agent spends typing in the composer. </li>
<li class="li">
<a class="xref" href="https://support.zendesk.com/hc/en-us/articles/4408887656602#topic_agl_vdf_2vb" target="_blank">Use a keyboard shortcut</a> to
apply macros. Shortcuts help agents apply macros faster.</li>
<li class="li">
<a class="xref" href="https://support.zendesk.com/hc/en-us/articles/4408829459866" target="_blank">Configure SLA policies</a> for
messaging channels to specify the response and resolution times that
your support team aims to deliver to your customers based on ticket
priority. </li>
</ul>
</li>
</ul>
<p class="p">For more information about measuring messaging first reply time, see: </p>
<ul class="ul" id="topic_wwm_xgp_tzb__ul_lcr_v3p_tzb">
<li class="li">
<a class="xref" href="https://support.zendesk.com/hc/en-us/articles/4724610509082#topic_f22_ck3_hzb" target="_blank">Analyzing your messaging tickets</a>
</li>
<li class="li"><a class="xref" href="https://support.zendesk.com/hc/en-us/articles/6496089460378" target="_blank">Reporting on first reply time for messaging
tickets</a></li>
<li class="li"><a class="xref" href="https://support.zendesk.com/hc/en-us/articles/4724624097818" target="_blank">Metrics and attributes for Zendesk
messaging</a></li>
</ul>
</div>
</div>
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