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 Why Are My Reply Time Averages So High?

If your timetoreply report is showing higher than expected reply times, the first step is to identify the messages contributing to the high average.

1. Identify the messages with high reply times
  1. Select the High Reply Time Average metric to view the underlying data.
  2. Find a message with an unusually long reply time.
  3. Copy the subject line of the message.
  4. Navigate to Conversation Logs.
  5. Search for the copied subject line and expand the conversation.
  6. Review each message in the conversation, including the received and sent timestamps.

This allows you to verify when the customer’s message was received and when the reply was sent, and can help identify what is contributing to the high reply time.

2. Check whether you are looking at First Reply Time or Overall Reply Time

First Reply Time measures the time taken to send the first reply in a conversation.

Overall Reply Time includes the time taken for all replies within the conversation.

Understanding which metric is high will help determine where the longer response times are occurring.

3. Check Business Hours

Business Hours can affect how reply times are calculated. When enabled, only time falling within the configured working hours is included.

Check that your Business Hours are configured correctly for the relevant mailbox.

Mailbox-specific Business Hours:
Entities → Mailboxes → Actions → Edit

Account-level Business Hours:
Settings → Business Hours

4. Check for outliers

A small number of very long reply times can significantly increase the average.

Review the underlying data to determine whether the high average is being caused by a small number of unusually long responses.

If applicable, check the Outliers Filter settings to confirm whether these messages are being included in your SLA calculations.

5. Check the mailbox and reporting period

If the issue is affecting a team or mailbox, check whether the high reply times are isolated to a particular mailbox or reporting period.

Compare the affected period with previous periods to determine whether the increase is recent or part of an ongoing trend.

If the reply time still appears incorrect

If the timestamps in Conversation Logs do not appear to match the reported reply time, provide support@timetoreply.com with:

  • The affected mailbox
  • The report and date range
  • The message/conversation subject
  • The reported reply time
  • Screenshots of the relevant timestamps

A specific example will help Support investigate the issue more efficiently.