Better customer service · Lesson 2 of 6
How to set customer service response time targets and meet them
No single response time is right for every business. This lesson shows how to choose a target that suits your customers and your team, and how to keep hitting it.
8 min
What you'll learn
- Measure your current response time honestly
- Choose a target per channel and type of question
- Check whether your team can handle that target
- Deal with the moments when you miss it
Step by step
- 1
Start by measuring where you are
Take two normal weeks of conversations and note, per channel, the time between the customer's message and the first real reply. An automatic confirmation doesn't count, because it hasn't helped the customer yet. Look at your slowest conversations as well as the average, since one unstaffed afternoon disappears easily in an average.
- 2
Ask what waiting costs for each type of question
A plumbing customer with a leak has a different problem from someone asking for a quote for next year. Make three groups: urgent (the customer is suffering damage or is stuck), normal, and can wait. Agree what's acceptable for each group. This is a judgment call, so test it against what your own customers tell you.
- 3
Agree on a target per channel
People writing in chat are often still on the page and may expect something sooner than people sending an email, though this varies by audience. Write your target as a full sentence: “During opening hours, we answer [this share] of chats within [this time] and emails within [this time].” You fill in the numbers yourself, based on steps 1 and 2. Start slightly better than your current time rather than with a number you can't back up.
- 4
Check whether your team can handle it
Count the messages in your busiest hours and multiply by the time a reply takes. A worked example, not a benchmark: 30 questions between 9 and 11 am at 4 minutes each is 120 minutes of work in 120 minutes, so one person falls behind the moment anything else comes up. If so, change the target, the staffing or the number of questions; better information on your website can help with that last one.
- 5
Tell customers what to expect
Put your opening hours and response time on the contact form, in your automatic reply and in the chat. An accounting firm might write: “We reply on weekdays between 9 am and 5 pm, usually the same day. If you message us after 5 pm, you'll hear from us the next working day.” Customers then know when to expect something and send fewer follow-ups.
- 6
Get warned before it goes wrong
A target only works if someone sees when it's about to be missed. Agree who watches the queue at busy moments and who steps in when the target is at risk. On a Pro or Enterprise plan in Bugalou, you can turn on SLA response time under Notifications and set a Max response time: the inbox then shows a timer on open conversations, counting from the last unanswered message, and you can be alerted when the time has passed. With business hours switched on, the timer stands still outside them.
- 7
Review every month
Check how often you hit the target and especially which moments went wrong, such as Monday mornings or a campaign week. Then adjust the staffing or the target, but not both at once, or you won't know what worked. If you meet the target easily and customers aren't asking for faster, you don't have to tighten it.
Common mistakes
Copying a number from the internet
A norm from a random article says nothing about your customers, your team or your type of questions. Build your target from your own figures and what your team can do.
Counting an automatic message as speed
An automatic confirmation makes your figure look better, but the customer still has no answer. Only count a reply that actually deals with the question.
Promising more than you can deliver
“We reply within 15 minutes” on your website only works if it also holds on a Friday afternoon and when someone is ill. Promise what you can always meet and be faster now and then.
Managing on speed alone
People judged only on the clock send quick half-answers, and the customer has to come back anyway. So also look at whether questions actually get solved.
Tips
- Can't make the agreed time? Send a short message with a new time. That beats silence.
- Block fixed inbox time in your busiest hours and schedule meetings for quieter moments.
- Under Analytics, in Responses, the Peak Hours chart shows when most messages come in (Pro).
You're done when
- You know your current time to first real reply, per channel
- You have a target per channel, written as a full sentence
- You've checked that your team can meet it in the busiest hours
- Customers can see your opening hours and what to expect
Frequently asked questions
What is a good customer service response time?
There's no universal number. A good response time suits how urgent your customers' questions are, and you can keep it on busy days too. Steps 1 to 4 help you find that number.
Does an automatic reply count as a response?
To the customer it's only a confirmation that the message arrived. It's useful for setting expectations, but leave it out of your response time. It only counts as an answer if it really solves the question.
How should you handle messages outside opening hours?
Use an automatic message to say when the customer will get an answer, and tell them what to do if it's urgent. Also decide whether waiting time outside opening hours counts, so your figures stay fair to compare.