Things to understand about First reply time in Zendesk
I’ve had quite a few cases where the First reply time is off the charts and businesses don't understand why, as their support setup is in quite good shape.
The reasons can vary and I’m here to share a few with you of why that happens, so maybe you can be more weary in the future about how you work with Zendesk. Becoming a master is a game of patience, observance and experience. Ok, I sound like a dad. Anyway, it works.
You first need to understand 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. Easy.
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. As an example:
A customer creates a ticket via email or form. Timing starts when the ticket is created and ends at the first public agent 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.
An agent creates a ticket. Timing starts when the ticket is created and ends at the agent's next public comment. This can be the culprit many times as you sometimes create a ticket to be able to remember certain tasks.
And this is a quick list on why you’re sometimes stuck with irrelevant statistics. You can be weary of them and find work arounds to avoid measuring those tickets in the reports you provide to upper management. Not to look good, as that is never a good idea, rather to have a better picture of where you are.
As a simple solution, you can just exclude some of these use cases from being present in your reporting. Add a tag to these types of tickets and and just exclude tickets with that tag you chose.
If you want more tips on how to improve your Customer Satisfaction by focusing on your first reply time, please read this article I wrote on the matter.
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