How Ticket Response Times are Calculated

There are a few ticket reports available within SmarterTrack that reference "Response Time." However, the idea of response times can be confusing, so this article attempts to explain how response times are calculated in SmarterTrack.

First things first, response times are based on ticket "actions." A ticket action is any change in ticket status, such as a reply sent back to the customer, or if a ticket is reassigned or transferred, either manually or via an Event. One thing to note: if a customer responds to a ticket BEFORE an action is performed on it, the response time is not affected.

The next thing to consider is whether response times are calculated on business hours, which varies per SmarterTrack version.

Applies to SmarterTrack 11.x-12.x

By default, response times are calculated based on business hours and will not include time that passes during holidays or off-hours. This may result in some response times being 0, since it's possible for a message to come in and an action to be performed completely outside of business hours. 

Applies to SmarterTrack 6.x - 10.x 

Administrators have the option choosing whether response times are calculated based on business hours. This setting is found at Settings >> System Settings >> Tickets >> Ticket Settings on the Options tab by either checking or leaving unchecked "Enable ticket response time report data to be calculated based on business hours." It is useful to turn this setting ON if you wish to use response time as accountability for your agents.

If business hours ARE taken into account, response time will not include time that passes during holidays or off-hours. This may result in some response times being 0, since it's possible for a message to come in and an action to be performed completely outside of business hours. It is useful to turn this setting ON if you wish to use response time as accountability for your agents.

If business hours ARE NOT taken into account, the system will simply use the time between the incoming message and an action. If you wish to use response time simply as a metric for how much time the customer sees as passing, and you do not anticipate auditing agents for response times, turn this setting OFF. You may also with to disable this setting if you use business hours primarily for chat enforcement and not for ticket responses.

If these settings are changed, they only take effect for any reports moving forward. However, you can retroactively calculate response times if needed. NOTE: This action should only be performed by a system administrator and/or someone who is comfortable editing your SmarterTrack database.

To apply business hour changes and retroactively recalculate response time reports, do the following:

1. Run the following query on your database:

   delete from st_GlobalSettings where settingname like 'version9tickettimingfix_%'

2. If you're running SmarterTrack as a site in IIS, restart SmarterTrack's application pool. If you are using the default web server, simply stop and restart it.
3. After a few minutes, the response times will all be recalculated.

Learn more about SmarterTrack’s email ticket system and how it will help you improve your customer service.