When you use Zendesk to support customers, a question that people commonly ask is “How long does it typically take for one of my agents to respond to a ticket after it’s first created?”
Zendesk Support records the time from when a ticket was created to the first public agent response. Zendesk Explore reads this value and makes it available in a metric named First reply time.
Use this article to understand how first reply time works, and how you can use it in your reports.
This article contains the following sections:
How first reply time is calculated
The Zendesk first reply time metric measures the time between ticket creation and the first public agent comment after that.
After the first public reply, Support calculates the first reply time in calendar hours and business hours. Both metrics are stored with the ticket data, so you can use either (or both) to build reports.
First reply time works the same regardless of the channel from which the ticket originates. For example:
- A customer email creates a ticket. Timing starts when the ticket is created and ends at the first public agent comment.
- An agent creates a ticket. Timing starts when the ticket is created and ends at the agent's next public comment.
- An agent takes a phone call that creates a ticket and solves the ticket with no new comment. The customer later re-opens the ticket, and the agent then responds with a public comment. First reply time ends when that comment is posted.
- When an agent adds a public comment from another account using ticket sharing, this does not count toward your account's first reply time.
Reporting first reply time
Use the following sections to understand how to use the Zendesk reporting tools to read first reply time information.
Reporting using Explore
Explore reads first reply time information from Support. The reports:
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Read data from Support using the Zendesk API. They do not calculate calendar hours or business hours.
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Display information on pre-built reports in calendar hours. However, metrics for business hours are available and can be used in your own reports.
For help with metrics, see Metrics and attributes for Zendesk Support.
Reporting using External analytic tools
If you are not using any of the Zendesk reporting methods, you can still read first reply time information using the Zendesk API. The first reply time information in calendar hours is stored together with the first reply time in business hours and clearly labelled. For details, see the API metrics documentation.
Reporting using the Reporting Overview
The Reporting Overview is not available if you have Zendesk Explore. The overview can:
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Display the first reply time metric directly from Zendesk Support
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Display calendar hours only; business hours are not displayed
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Displays average reply time for all tickets
For more information about built-in reports, see Using the Reporting Overview
Zendesk SLAs and first reply time
Zendesk Service Level Agreements, or SLAs, are an agreed-upon measure of the response and resolution times that your support team delivers to your customers. To determine these times, SLAs also use the first reply time. However, there are important differences in the way that these metrics work with SLAs:
- If a ticket is created with a public comment from an agent, the SLA first reply time target is not run.
- If a ticket is created with a private comment, the SLA first reply time target will not start until the ticket gets a first public comment from an end user. An exception to this rule is that if the requester is a light agent, the first reply time SLA target starts at creation even without a public comment.
- SLA first reply time targets are fulfilled when a ticket is solved, even if the ticket never had a public comment from an agent.
- SLA targets can be run in calendar or business hours, but not both.
- Business hour SLA targets pause outside business hours, then restart when business hours begin.
For more information, see Defining and using SLA policies.
47 Comments
Hi Zendesk,
We use ZD Explore reports to look into some metrics during evaluations with our customers. With one graphic we look into the First reply time.
I am quoting this article: "An agent creates a ticket.Timing starts when the ticket is created and ends at the agent's next public comment."
This means that when we create a ticket, we depend on the reply time of the customer for this metric. Because logically, we reply after the customer replies.
Could you help me with setting up a custom attribute, which is in case of an agent creating a ticket, only starts counting after the first public reply of the customer?
Thanks in advance :)
You can try building a custom attribute using the earliest date functions (Working with earliest and latest date functions). You can create a metric with the date_diff function to get the duration between ticket creation timestamp and that first end user reply timestamp, and then subtract that metric value from the ticket's first reply time. That should give you the from the end user's first comment and the agent's second public comment.
Is there a way to create a report that can get timestamps on tickets when they are escalated from team to team ?
You may be able to achieve this through custom metrics and attributes. Here's a recipe that you can use as guide: Tracking ticket assigns across groups. You can slice the data by Update - Timestamp, or you can create attributes using a similar that returns the Update - Date or Timestamp.
Hello ZendeskTeam,
Is there any way to set ticket time frames?
By this I mean that On-Hold and Pending tickets reappear as Open ticket to the assigned agent after a set time frame?
It happens that when there are many OnHold or Pending tickets, some go down.
Hi Luciano,
It looks like you're trying to see the time a ticket spends on certain ticket statuses (On-hold, Pending, Open). You can use this Explore recipe: Reporting on the duration of fields - Calculating the average time a ticket is in each status through its lifecycle to track these timeframes.
I hope this helps! Stay safe!
Hi Zendesk,
This article states, "An agent creates a ticket. Timing starts when the ticket is created and ends at the agent's next public comment."
We are trying to track when an agent (requestor) from one team creates a ticket that is for another team to solve. Once the ticket is assigned to an agent from team and they respond via public comment, is "first to reply" tracking how long it took for the assigned agent to respond to the agent who created the ticket?
My specific team is fairly new to ZD so trying to build out our processes and reporting. Thank you!
In that scenario, the First reply time will be the duration between the first two agent comments. Note that Zendesk will record the FRT once a second public comment was added by an admin or an agent; if for some reason, the requester who is also an agent adds a second comment, then that will be considered the 'First reply'.
I have omnichannel routing turned on and would love to track an FRT once a ticket has been assigned? Context for this is that we always have a backlog of emails, and sometimes emails won't get responded to until 24-48 hours later. However I want to track how long they sit in my analysts' open queue before they respond. Please let me know if this is possible or not
You can try subtracting the value of First assignment time from the First reply time metric. This should give you the duration from initial assignment to the first response from the agent.
Hi experts. I have a question: can an auto-reply work as the first public agent comment?
We have a trigger which sends auto-replies to specific type of tickets. I am curious if we add an action to the trigger to Solve tickets after sending the auto-reply, will this affect the first reply time metric.
Thanks.
Hi Paula Malmsteen welcome to our Community! :)
The First reply time metric is calculated from the time between when a ticket was created to the time the first public comment is sent from an agent profile. Trigger notifications are not added as comments to the ticket so they should not affect your FRT.
I hope this clarifies your concern! :)
How can I create a query for first resolution date in zendesk.
Hello Magan,
I have found this recipe that would allow you to create a "First reply date".
Reference: Explore recipe: Creating a ticket first reply date attribute
You can just alter the formula to use the "First resolution time" instead of "First reply time" so that the outcome would display the "First resolution - date".
This doesn't make sense to me. If a ticket is created by full Agent as private and then converted to public, the SLA first reply time should still not be applicable. The behavior should be consistent for full Agents regardless of whether the ticket starts as private or internal.
For tickets created by light Agents, it does make sense to apply the first reply time SLA to ensure the full Agents get to it within a timely manner.
This seems like a dumb question but that won't stop me - How do I create a report for reply times, inclusive of all agent replies, not just first reply time?
I'm not only interested in first reply time average/median but also average reply time for all replies. I was expecting this to be a default metric but the only reply time metrics I can find are "first reply time". It seems like I have to create a custom calculated metric for this? Any guidance would be appreciate.
In the case you highlight, if a ticket is created with a private comment, but has an end user as the requester, it is expected that the end user would reply or add some information to the ticket, thus making the first reply time relevant. Otherwise, you could keep either the agent that posted the private comment as the requester or add another agent as requester instead of the end user.
Hope this sheds some light on this topic!
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