Full resolution time

Response time is how long a customer waits for a reply once they have made contact. Teams report it as a first-response figure and as an average across subsequent replies, because a fast opening reply followed by long silences produces a poor experience despite good headline numbers.

Time to first response is how long a customer waits before any human or AI reply arrives. It is the most visible service measure to the customer and the easiest to improve with automation, which is why it should always be read alongside resolution quality.

First contact resolution is the share of issues fully resolved during a customer’s first interaction, with no follow-up contact about the same problem. It correlates strongly with satisfaction and cost, but only when measured over a defined reopen window rather than at ticket close.

A service level agreement sets the committed response and resolution targets for a customer, tier, or contract, often with financial penalties attached. Support operations design queues, routing, and escalation around SLA thresholds, which makes the agreement a structural constraint rather than a reporting line.