First Response Time (FRT)
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What first response time is
FRT measures waiting, not resolution. The clock starts when the request arrives and stops at the first real reply. It is usually reported as an average or median across all requests in a period. Teams often exclude automatic acknowledgements such as “We received your message”, because they do not address the question.
How it is calculated
For each request, subtract the time it arrived from the time of the first reply, then take the average or median for the period. A few choices affect the result:
- Count business hours only, or calendar time.
- Use the median if a few very slow replies distort the average.
- Report each channel separately, because expectations for chat and email differ.
- Decide whether a chatbot answer counts as a first response, and say so in reports.
Example
A support team receives five chat requests in a morning. The first replies come after 1, 2, 2, 4 and 21 minutes. The average FRT is 6 minutes, but the median is 2 minutes, which better reflects what most customers experienced. The single 21-minute wait still deserves a closer look.
Why it matters for business chatbots
Website visitors often leave if nobody answers. An AI chatbot starts replying as soon as a message arrives, at any hour, so the first response no longer depends on staff availability. Speed alone is not the goal, though: a fast reply that misses the question only moves the wait elsewhere. That is why FRT is usually tracked together with resolution and satisfaction metrics such as CSAT.
First response time and intoCHAT
The intoCHAT agent answers messages as they arrive, including nights and weekends, using your content and within your plan's monthly message limit. It does not report FRT, since there is no human queue to measure. When a question needs a person, the lead form captures contact details and you get an email alert, so your own follow-up time decides how fast that visitor hears back.