An overview of Gorgias first response time and how to improve it

If you're in e-commerce, you know that speed matters. A lot. When a customer has a question before buying, they aren't going to hang around for hours waiting for you to reply. They’ll just find a competitor who can answer them faster. This is why First Response Time (FRT) is such a big deal for any support team, especially when you're using a platform like Gorgias that’s built for fast-moving brands. A quick FRT isn't just a nice-to-have for customer satisfaction; it can directly affect your sales.

But just knowing that FRT is important doesn’t actually fix it. You need a real plan. Gorgias gives you some impressive built-in tools, and many teams look for ways to build on that efficiency as they grow. They find opportunities to further refine their speed without sacrificing the quality of their answers as more and more tickets pour in. This guide will walk you through what your Gorgias first response time really means, how to get the most out of its native features, and when it might be time to bring in a specialized AI solution to give your customers the instant support they expect.

What is Gorgias first response time?

In Gorgias, First Response Time is pretty straightforward: it’s the time that passes between a customer sending a message and an agent sending the first reply back. Think of it as a direct measure of how long your customers are left waiting for a real person to acknowledge them. According to Gorgias's own documentation, the calculation intentionally ignores automated messages from Rules. It’s focused on that first human touchpoint to get a true sense of the customer's wait.

How your Gorgias first response time is calculated

Gorgias starts the clock the moment the first customer message arrives and stops it when the first message from a human agent is sent.

A few things to keep in mind about their method:

• It focuses on human replies: Any initial automated responses you have set up with Rules are ignored, so the metric shows the genuine wait time for a personal response.

• The clock doesn't stop: The timer includes nights and weekends, which makes sense given that e-commerce is a 24/7 world.

• It uses the median, not the average: Gorgias reports the median FRT. This is actually pretty smart because it prevents a few oddball tickets from skewing the numbers. It gives you a much more realistic picture of your typical performance.

What are the industry benchmarks for Gorgias first response time?

Customer expectations can change wildly depending on how they contact you. A 24-hour reply on email might have been fine a few years ago, but today’s shoppers are a bit more demanding. Drawing from data across thousands of brands, Gorgias offers benchmarks that reveal how different channels usually perform.

For instance, in the Food and Beverages industry, the median Gorgias first response time for email is around 11.5 hours. For live chat, it's 1.5 hours, and for SMS, it drops to less than an hour at 0.7 hours. A fast response on chat is expected, but getting your email response time under an hour? That can really make you stand out.

How to improve Gorgias first response time with native tools

Gorgias has a robust set of built-in features to help you handle tickets more efficiently. Before you start looking at third-party tools, it’s worth making sure you’re squeezing every bit of value out of what you already have. It's also helpful to recognize how these tools can be further enhanced as your needs evolve.

Use macros and templates for faster replies

Macros are basically Gorgias's version of canned responses. They’re a must-have for tackling common questions without having to type out the same answer over and over.

• Where they shine: Perfect for answering those frequent questions like, "What’s your return policy?" or "Where's my order?" You can even use variables to automatically pull in the customer's name or their last order number, which is a nice touch.

• How it helps FRT: It cuts down on how much time an agent spends typing, which means they can send that first reply much faster.

• Key takeaway: Macros are a fantastic way to maintain brand consistency. While they still involve an agent to send the message, they significantly reduce the effort involved in each response.

Automate simple tasks with Gorgias Rules

Rules are the main way you can automate things inside Gorgias. You can create "if this, then that" workflows to handle tasks automatically.

• Where they shine: They’re great for ticket triage. You can use Rules to automatically add tags (like 'urgent' or 'return'), assign tickets to the correct department, or send a quick auto-reply if a message comes in after hours.

• How it helps FRT: While those auto-replies don't technically count for the official FRT metric, they do a great job of managing customer expectations. Even better, by automatically tagging and routing tickets, Rules get the right queries in front of the right agents sooner, which helps lower the human response time.

• Key takeaway: As you grow, managing a large volume of Rules requires careful organization. While they are incredibly powerful for logic-based tasks, you can complement them with AI to handle more nuanced or conversational customer messages.

Use the Gorgias AI Agent and Flows

Gorgias also offers its own AI Agent and self-service chat flows to handle more of the workload.

• Where they shine: Flows are good for guiding customers through a few questions to solve simple problems, like tracking an order. The AI Agent can answer FAQ-style questions and take care of simple actions, like processing a return.

• How it helps FRT: These tools can deliver an instant, 0-second FRT by resolving an issue without a human ever getting involved.

• Key takeaway: This automation is designed to work seamlessly with your Gorgias Help Center and standard Shopify actions. For more complex questions that require information from specialized sources like Google Docs or Confluence, you can further enhance your ecosystem with complementary tools.

Scaling up: Enhancing your Gorgias first response time

For many growing e-commerce brands, there comes a point where you want to take your Gorgias setup to the next level. You might find your team wants to spend more time on high-impact tickets while automating the rest. This is where you can look to further expand your automation strategy.

Managing complex workflows as your brand grows

A support team can build a very successful foundation on Rules. As you expand to a new country or launch a new product line, you can simply keep refining your setup. For teams that want to handle increasingly complex logic without manual troubleshooting, adding an AI layer can help manage these advanced workflows more smoothly.

Connecting additional knowledge sources

Many companies find that their valuable knowledge is spread across various places: in Google Docs, Confluence pages, and Slack channels. While Gorgias’s native AI is optimized for the Help Center, you can further enhance your setup by integrating tools that connect to these additional internal documents. This allows your team to automate a wider variety of queries, saving your agents time and ensuring they have the best information at their fingertips.

Navigating Gorgias's flexible pricing for peak periods

Gorgias's AI Agent offers a usage-based model where you pay for each automated interaction. This flexible approach means you only pay for the resolutions you achieve. During high-volume periods like Black Friday, this ensures your support capacity scales automatically, providing a consistent experience for every customer and matching your growth perfectly.

Complementing your setup: Integrating a specialized AI agent

To build on your already strong Gorgias foundation, you can integrate a specialized AI solution that works right alongside it. A smart AI agent should bring all your knowledge together and give you even more control to automate with confidence.

This is where a tool like eesel AI comes into play. It plugs right into Gorgias and acts like a central brain for your entire support operation. It can provide instant answers and handle tasks that complement what the native tools already do so well.

Unify all your knowledge

The benefit is the ability to connect to all your different knowledge sources. With eesel AI, you can train your AI agent on:

• Your entire ticket history: The AI learns from every past solution and automatically adopts your brand's voice.

• External documentation: You can connect knowledge bases from Confluence, Google Docs, Notion, and other platforms with just a click.

• Real-time data: You can even use custom API actions to have the AI look up live order information from Shopify or check inventory levels.

This means your AI can answer tricky, multi-part questions in an instant, which further cuts down on escalations and helps you maintain an exceptional Gorgias first response time.

Go live in minutes

Gorgias is known for its ease of use, and eesel AI is designed with that same philosophy. You can connect your Gorgias account with a single click and have a basic AI agent up and running in minutes, all on your own. It's a simple way to add another layer of power to your existing helpdesk.

Test with confidence: Simulate your AI's impact

Want to see how additional automation will affect your workflow? eesel AI has a powerful simulation mode that lets you test your setup on thousands of your past Gorgias tickets. You can see exactly how the AI would have responded, get a forecast of your potential automation rate, and refine its behavior in a safe environment. It allows you to roll out new automation features at your own pace.

Take full control with customizable workflows

eesel AI gives you fine-grained control over how your automation works within the Gorgias ecosystem. You can decide exactly which types of tickets the AI should handle and what actions it's allowed to take.

• Selective Automation: You could start by having the AI handle your "Where Is My Order?" (WISMO) tickets and escalate everything else. As you grow, you can easily expand its reach.

• Custom Actions: You can define the AI's persona and tone of voice to match your brand perfectly, from tagging tickets to calling an external API to process a return.

This level of control, paired with predictable pricing, makes eesel AI a great way to further improve your Gorgias first response time.

Improving your Gorgias first response time means building on a strong foundation

Improving your Gorgias first response time is one of the best things you can do to make customers happier and grow your revenue. Gorgias's own tools like Macros and Rules offer a powerful starting point for any successful e-commerce brand.

To offer truly instant, high-quality support as you scale, you can build on this foundation by bringing all your knowledge together and using intelligent automation. A solution like eesel AI works with your existing setup to give you a powerful and controllable way to enhance your support and keep your customers happy.

Ready to see how you can bring that Gorgias first response time down even further? Try eesel AI for free.