A good first response time depends on severity and on what you've promised in your SLA. A common B2B pattern is about an hour for urgent issues, a few hours for high priority, and one business day for normal tickets, with faster targets for chat than email.
Speed only counts if the reply is useful. A fast first response that asks for logs you could have looked up hurts more than it helps.
Setting your targets
- Set separate targets by severity and channel
- Keep internal targets below what the SLA promises
- Track median and 90th percentile, not just the average
- Measure off-hours separately; that's where the long tail lives
Improving it without adding headcount
- Automate a substantive first response, not just an acknowledgment
- Route technical tickets straight to people who can investigate
- Pre-pull account context so the first reply can include an answer
Omnea reached a 3.8-minute average first response with Decimal. See first response time.