Analytics metrics in action

One of Front's greatest values is that we can measure and show you how efficiently your team is working. There are several key metrics you can use to understand how well you are serving your customers, and use these insights to drive improvements. The metrics we will see in action in this article are:

1. Reaction time

2. Handle time

3. Reply time

4. First reply time

5. Total reply time

The cases below illustrate some common situations your team might encounter and show how different metrics are measured in each case. We have another article specifically on Total reply time examples, which you can see here.

Julie is a CSM at Acme Corp and wants to understand her reply time, reaction time, handle time, and total reply time for one of her customer interactions. Here’s what happened:

• 9am: She received an email from her client, Beyonce.

• 9:05am: It gets manually assigned to her by her manager.

• 9:07am: Julie opens the email.

• 9:10am: Julie sends back a reply back regarding Beyonce's lemonade request.

• 9:20am: Beyonce wrote back with the needed information.

• 9:35am: Julie placed the ordered, replied back, and archived the email.

• In the same thread, Beyonce wrote seven days later with another question.

Acme Corp’s business hours are set between 9am and 5pm PST with two team shifts to cover the eight-hour period. Julie is on shift A between 9am and 1pm; and Tom is on shift B between 1pm and 5pm:

• 4:30am: Lady Gaga is overseas on tour and emails Acme Corp.

• 9am: The message is assigned to Julie at the start of shift A, via a load balancing rule.

  • 9:50am: Julie opens the message.

  • 10am: Julie replies to Lady Gaga.

  • 12:55pm: Julie gets assigned a message, via a load balancing rule, sent from Liam Hemsworth. Because it’s so close to the end of her shift, she manually unassigns herself, which places the message back to the shared inbox.

• 1pm: Tom starts shift B and Liam’s message is auto-assigned to him via a load balancing rule.

  • 1:05pm: Tom opens the message.

  • 1:15pm: Tom sends the reply.

Continuing from Case 2, where the company had business hours set from 9am-5pm PST:

• 8pm: Liam’s brother, Chris Hemsworth, emails in.

• 8:01pm: Tom opens the message.

• 8:10pm: Tom sends a reply, even though it’s outside business hours.

Oftentimes, the support team will write a draft answering a client’s question, then share that draft with the CSM for the CSM to send the message. In these cases, reaction and reply times would count as standard, but handle time is only counted for the final sender:

• 4:30am: Lady Gaga sends in a message.

• 9am: The conversation is assigned to Julie and she opens it immediately.

• 9:50am: Julie starts writing a draft.

• 10am: Julie shares the draft with Tom.

• 12:55pm: Tom opens the message.

• 1pm: Tom edits the draft.

• 1:05pm: Tom sends the message.

Handle time would not include Julie's time; only the time spent on the draft by the final sender is counted, which is Tom.

• 4:30am: Lady Gaga sends in a message.

• 9am: Julie opens this message A and reads it, but isn't ready to respond.

• 9:10am: Julie opens another message B.

• 9:20am: Julie returns to message A and starts a draft.

• 9:30am: Julie clicks to message B, C, and D.

• 1pm: Julie returns to message A and resumes editing.

• 1:15pm: Julie sends response to message A.

Lady Gaga is very strict about not wanting emails during particular hours of the day, so Julie will regularly snooze emails to respond to later, or sometimes set a Send Later for Lady Gaga's preferred business hours:

• 9:30am: Lady Gaga sends in a message.

• 10am: Julie opens the email and begins drafting.

• 10:10am: Julie schedules the email to Send Later in the day.

• 3pm: The message sends out at the scheduled time.

Snoozing and using Send Later do not impact reply times, as the reply time only counts the time that elapsed between the inbound message and the time a reply sent out.

Analytics are available on the Growth plan or above. Some legacy plans with different names may also allow access to this feature.