A complete guide to understanding and improving your Freshdesk first response time

Let’s be honest, First Response Time (FRT) isn't just another metric on your support dashboard. It’s the first impression you make when a customer needs help. That initial wait time can set the mood for the entire conversation. A fast, helpful reply feels like a warm welcome, telling your customer, "We're on it." A long delay, on the other hand, can be frustrating and make people feel ignored, no matter how great the final solution is.

While Freshdesk gives you a solid set of tools to keep an eye on FRT, just using the built-in features often isn’t enough to make a real dent. The biggest slowdown usually isn't about assigning tickets faster; it's about giving agents the information they need to answer them accurately right away. This is where specialized AI tools can make a huge difference, offering a smarter way to not only lower your FRT but also boost the quality of that crucial first reply.

What is Freshdesk first response time?

In simple terms, First Response Time (FRT) is the average time it takes for a support agent to send their first human reply to a customer's ticket. It's a stopwatch that measures how quickly your team acknowledges a customer’s problem with a personal touch.

Here's how Freshdesk officially crunches the numbers: Total time taken to send the first response during the selected time period divided by the number of tickets whose first responses were sent in the selected time period.

It's good to know what Freshdesk actually counts as a "first response." The automated "We got your ticket!" emails don't stop the clock. Neither do any internal notes your team makes. The timer only stops when an agent sends a public reply straight to the customer.

This metric is more than just a speed test; it’s a check-up on your business's health. It’s a key part of most Service Level Agreements (SLAs) and directly affects your bottom line. A study by Deloitte & Touche even found that customer-focused companies are 60% more profitable. A low FRT is one of the clearest ways to show customers they come first.

How to measure and track your Freshdesk first response time

So, how do you actually see what your FRT is? Luckily, Freshdesk has a built-in Helpdesk Performance report that gives you a pretty good place to start.

A screenshot of the Freshdesk analytics dashboard showing various metrics, including the average first response time.

Inside your analytics dashboard, you'll find a few widgets that give you the breakdown:

• Avg 1st response time split by Source: This is great for seeing which channels are quick and which ones are lagging. Are emails taking way longer than social media replies? This helps you figure out where to focus.

• Avg 1st response time split by Priority: This one is key for making sure your team is tackling the most important issues first. 'Urgent' and 'High' priority tickets should have a much lower FRT than 'Low' priority ones. If not, you might have a problem in how you prioritize tickets.

• Avg 1st response time split by Custom Property: If you use custom fields to sort tickets (like by product or type of issue), this widget lets you get super specific in your analysis.

But here's where many teams get stuck. While the dashboard gives a nice high-level view, digging deeper for custom reports can be tough. The Freshdesk API doesn't make it easy to pull key metrics like FRT or resolution time in hours, which is a known frustration for anyone trying to build their own reports.

This makes it hard to figure out the potential return on investment of new tools or to pinpoint the subtle workflow issues that are slowing your team down. You can see what is happening, but it's much harder to understand why.

Native Freshdesk strategies to improve Freshdesk first response time

Freshdesk comes with several features designed to help you chip away at that FRT. Let's walk through what’s available and where you might still find some gaps.

Using automation for ticket assignment

One of the main reasons for a high FRT is "dead time", that limbo where a ticket just sits in a queue, waiting for someone to pick it up. In a bit of "practice what you preach," Freshdesk used its own automation features to cut its own FRT from almost eight hours down to less than one.

You can set up rules to assign tickets in a few ways:

• Load-based: Spreads tickets out evenly so no single agent gets buried.

• Skill-based: Sends tickets about a specific topic to the agent who knows it best.

• Omniroute: Assigns emails, chats, and calls based on who has the bandwidth, no matter the channel.

But here's the catch: these tools are fantastic for routing tickets, but they don't do anything to help the agent actually answer them. The ticket gets to the right person faster, but that agent still has to open it, read it, hunt for the right information in different places, and then type out a response. That manual research is often the biggest time-sink, and ticket assignment doesn't solve it.

Leveraging Freddy AI

To help with the answering part, Freshdesk has its own AI called Freddy AI. It comes in two main forms: Freddy AI Copilot, which helps human agents, and Freddy AI Agent, which runs chatbots.

A screenshot showing Freshdesk's Freddy AI Copilot assisting an agent with a customer query to improve Freshdesk first response time.

Having a built-in AI sounds handy, but teams often bump into a few problems:

• Siloed Knowledge: Freddy AI mostly learns from your Freshdesk knowledge base. But let's be real, where does your team keep the really good, up-to-date info? It’s probably scattered across places like Confluence, Google Docs, or Notion. Since Freddy can't see this other knowledge, its answers can be generic or incomplete. This just sends agents on another hunt for the real solution.

• Complex and Unpredictable Costs: Freddy AI isn't part of the standard Freshdesk plans; it's an expensive add-on. According to Freshdesk's pricing page, the Copilot is an extra $29 per agent per month, and the AI Agent is priced by "session." This means your bill can swing wildly depending on how busy you are, making costs hard to predict and potentially very high as your team grows.

• Limited Capabilities: Freddy's main trick is conversational answers. It can't do more complex, time-saving tasks like intelligently sorting tickets based on what the customer is asking, updating ticket fields on its own, or checking other systems for real-time data (like an order status).

A better way: Use a dedicated AI platform

Instead of trying to work around the limits of a built-in tool, a better approach is to use a dedicated AI platform that plugs right into the tools you already use. eesel AI works like an intelligent brain for your Freshdesk account, bringing together all your scattered knowledge and automating work in ways the native tools just can't. It boosts your current setup without making you switch helpdesks.

Unify all your knowledge

The Achilles' heel of most helpdesk AIs is their limited worldview. eesel AI fixes this by connecting to all of your knowledge sources with one-click integrations, effectively breaking down those frustrating information silos.

It can learn from:

• Historical Freshdesk Tickets: eesel AI reads through thousands of your past support conversations to learn your brand's voice and pick up on proven solutions, right from the start.

• External Wikis and Docs: It connects directly to where your team actually documents things, pulling information from Confluence, Google Docs, Notion, and more than 100 other apps.

Now your AI has the full story, no matter where it's written down. The result is an AI that gives fast, accurate, and truly complete first responses that can solve the customer's problem right away because it has all the context.

Automate responses and actions

While Freshdesk automation can route a ticket, the eesel AI Agent can actually resolve it on its own. It's built on a fully customizable workflow engine, giving you complete control over how it works.

This gives you two big advantages:

• Selective Automation: You get to choose exactly which tickets the AI should handle. You can start small, letting it take care of simple "how-to" questions or password resets, while it escalates everything else to a human. This control lets you introduce automation at a comfortable pace.

• Custom Actions: The AI can do more than just chat. You can set it up to perform tasks in your other systems. It can tag tickets and change their status in Freshdesk, or even ping your e-commerce platform to look up a customer's order status and share it instantly.

This kind of automation frees your team from the grind of answering the same questions over and over, letting them focus on the tricky issues that need a human touch and seriously improving your team's FRT.

Test with confidence and get actionable insights

Trying out a new AI tool can feel like a bit of a gamble. Will it actually work for us? What will the return be? eesel AI gets rid of that guesswork with its simulation mode.

• Simulation Mode: Before you flip the switch, you can safely test your AI on thousands of your past Freshdesk tickets. eesel AI will show you exactly how it would have replied, giving you a solid forecast of its resolution rate and how much it could lower your FRT. You can tweak its behavior in a safe environment without any risk to your customers.

• Actionable Reporting: Instead of fighting with a clunky API, eesel AI's dashboard gives you clear reports you can actually use. It shows you ROI, cost savings, and even points out gaps in your knowledge base by highlighting questions the AI couldn't answer. This gives you a data-driven to-do list for creating new help articles.

This no-risk setup gives you the confidence to get started and the insights you need to keep improving.

Comparing Freshdesk and eesel AI pricing

When you're looking at AI tools, it's important to figure out what you'll actually end up paying. A low starting price can get out of hand once you start adding all the necessary extras.

Freshdesk Pricing:

Freshdesk’s pricing for its AI is layered. You pay for your main plan, and then you bolt on the AI features, which can lead to some sticker shock.

Freshdesk Plan	Cost (Billed Annually)	Freddy AI Copilot Add-on	Freddy AI Agent Add-on
Pro	$49 / agent / month	$29 / agent / month	$100 / 1,000 sessions
Enterprise	$79 / agent / month	$29 / agent / month	$100 / 1,000 sessions

eesel AI Pricing:

On the other hand, eesel AI has transparent, all-in-one pricing. All the main features, including the AI Agent and Copilot, are included in every plan.

Pricing is based on a predictable number of monthly AI interactions (which is one reply or one action), with no hidden fees per agent. The Business plan, for example, gives you unlimited bots and lets you train the AI on past tickets, offering a ton of value without any pricing surprises. This model is predictable and much easier to scale as your company grows.

Take control of your Freshdesk first response time

Improving your Freshdesk first response time is one of the best things you can do to make customers happy and keep them coming back. While Freshdesk gives you some basic tools to get started, its native AI has real limitations when it comes to knowledge sources, automation power, and pricing.

eesel AI offers a smarter way forward. It plugs right into your Freshdesk setup to give you more intelligent automation that’s powered by a unified view of all your company's knowledge. With a risk-free way to get started and predictable pricing, it’s built to deliver results quickly.

At the end of the day, the goal isn't just a faster first response, but a better, more accurate, and more helpful one. An AI that can solve a customer's problem on the very first try is the best way to lower your FRT and make your customers smile.

Ready to see how much time you could save? Start your free eesel AI trial and simulate its impact on your Freshdesk tickets in just a few minutes.