In Freshchat, with Response Expectations, you can configure the time it takes for your agents to respond. This sets realistic expectations for your customers and site visitors for their conversations with your team.


These time values are automatically calculated for each topic based on a thirty-minute window (or from the previous seven days if you had no conversations in the recent past).


Go to Admin Settings > Configuration and Workflows > Web Chat Settings > Response Expectations to configure response expectations. You can choose between two response times and see the current response expectations on the screen.

  1. Response time: Use this to give users a realistic picture during low-chat volume scenarios
    • This is calculated as the time your agents take to reply to messages. It doesn't account for the first response time and the time to assign the conversation.
  2. Time to first response: Use this to give users a realistic picture during high chat volume scenarios this also considers the chat assignment time
    • Time lapsed between your customer's first message and your team member's first response. This includes the time taken to assign the conversation as well.


You can view real-time values for these two options in your Dashboard within the Speed of Response widget. These values are auto-generated based on your team's performance and cannot be configured manually.




Note: To change the widget text 'Typically responds in' — and other widget customization options, refer to our developer's documentation here.