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Customer Service vocabulary · Service Metrics & Quality

Response time

Meaning in customer service, with examples

nounCore term

In customer service, response time means: The time between a customer contacting a company and receiving a reply, often measured in minutes for chat and in hours for email.

In Turkish: yanıt süresi, cevap süresi

How it is used

Teams track first response time (the first human reply) and average response time. Companies often promise a response time, such as "within 24 hours", on their website or in an SLA. Customers often judge a company's service by how fast it replies.

Example sentences

  1. Our average response time on email is under four hours.

  2. Response time on social media is slower at weekends because fewer agents are working.

Common collocations

  • first response time
  • average response time
  • improve response time
  • response time target
  • wait timeHow long a customer has to wait before an agent answers their call or chat.
  • SLAService level agreement: a written agreement that sets the standard of service a provider must deliver, such as response and resolution times.
  • average handle timeThe average length of one customer contact, including talking time, hold time and the work done after the call.
  • customer satisfactionHow happy customers are with a company's products, its service or a single interaction; also the measure of this happiness.

This word in other fields

The same English word can have a different meaning in another field:

More terms: Service Metrics & Quality

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