With that in mind, how does your team stack up? You can use our benchmarks to measure your team’s performance against both leaders in customer service as well as the average company in your sector.
Let’s start with statistics about customer service agents. The average company has 33.3 support agents and ten customer support departments. Across all industries, customers are generally satisfied with the agents they encounter, giving them an average agent satisfaction rating of 9.0 in the last year.
Most agents stay on schedule despite having demanding jobs that, on average, require them to use three systems to support their customers. Our findings show that the average call center schedule adherence is at 90%, live chat is at 95%, and ticketing is at a high 99%.
As for occupancy rates, companies that offer 24/7 service have an average occupancy rate of 98%, while companies that have regular 8-hour support windows have a 30% occupancy rate.
High occupancy rates indicate that most agents spend their time communicating with customers. Only a tiny fraction of their time is dedicated to other tasks like post-communication wrap-up, which on average is 30 minutes for sales, and 15 minutes for customer service. During this time, agents input data into systems, transfer tickets or send out follow-up emails.
With the average company netting 578 tickets per day, 3,991 per week, and 17,630 per month, the ticket volume in working hours comes out to a total of 6,594 hours. During an eight-hour shift, businesses receive an average of 20 technical tickets, 30 sales tickets, or 40 marketing tickets. The average ratio of opened to solved tickets is often 2:1, as some are considered invalid, duplicate, or a non-issue. Additionally, some tickets are abandoned by the requester, meaning the customer does not respond to the agent, making the ticket impossible to solve. In fact, the average ticket abandonment rate is 5% for calls and 8% for live chats.
The average time it takes to reach a live agent
#TimeToReachAgent
The average time it takes to reach a live agent is
10 sec.
LiveAgent
The average number of systems agents use
#SupportSystems
Support agents use an average of
three
systems to support customers.
LiveAgent
Average overall resolution rate
#ResolutionRate
The average overall resolution rate is
76.2%
Geckoboard
Average ticket volume
#TicketVolume
The average ticket volume is
20 technical tickets
30 sales tickets
40 marketing tickets
per shift.
LiveAgent
Average number of support reps per company
#SupportReps
#SupportAgents
An average company has
33.3
Average hold time across channels
#HoldTime
The average hold time
30.6 seconds
for live chat
25.8 seconds
for the phone
LiveAgent
Average ticket abandonment rate
#TicketAbandonmentRate
Calls have an average abandonment rate of
5%
while chats have an average abandonment rate of 8%.
The Temkin Group
Average handling time (AHT) by industry
#AverageHandlingTime
The average handling time
525 seconds
for telecommunications
324 seconds
for retail
282 seconds
for business and IT
282 seconds
for financial services
Freshdesk
Average after communication work time
#CommunicationWorkTime
Sales take an average of
30 min
to handle after-communication tasks, while customer service departments take
15 min
LiveAgent
Average transfer rate
#TransferRate
The average transfer rate is approximately 0.5 for companies using help desk software with advanced rules & automation and around 2 for a company using a shared mailbox only.
LiveAgent
Average number of transfers before resolution
#CustomerServiceProcedures
Companies using automation and customer service procedures transfer approximately
1 % of customers
while companies that don’t transfer approximately
2 % of customers
LiveAgent
Average speed of answer for open tickets
#TurnaroundTime
#OpenTickets
The average turnaround time for open tickets is
20.5 hr
LiveAgent
Now that we know how many tickets an average business receives, it’s time to see how many it can solve and in what time frame. Based on our research, the average company resolves 485 tickets per day, 3,349 per week, and 14,794 per month, equating to an average overall resolution rate of 76.2%. However, before a ticket is resolved, it is transferred between departments and agents 1-2 times on average, depending on the business’s internal processes.
To give you a general idea of the state of the industry, the average response time for all communication channels combined is between one to three hours.
There are, however, different benchmarks for each sector and communication channel that dictate how fast a customer should receive the first response, how quickly a ticket should be resolved, and how long hold and queue times should be.
Live chat, for example, has an average hold time of 30.6 seconds, while phone hold time is 25.8 seconds. Moreover, the average handle time for telecommunication companies is 525 seconds, compared to 324 seconds for retailers and 282 seconds for business, IT, and financial services.
In addition to average hold and handling time, there are several other response time benchmarks that most businesses measure. The first metric is time to first response. According to our research, 20% of customers receive a response within the first hour, 40% within the first 3 hours, and 95% within the first day of submitting their inquiry. The average response time is 30 seconds if there is no one in the queue, 3 minutes if there are 1-2 people, 6 minutes if there are 3-4 people, and 10+ minutes if more than five people are waiting in the queue.
However, reply volumes are a different story. For chats and phone calls, the response time ranges from 2 minutes for a company with enough support agents to 10 minutes during high chat and call volumes. Email communication ranges from 2 hours for a company that has enough agents online to 4 hours when there is an overload of tickets. Moreover, the average speed of answer for open tickets is 20.5 hours. The average customer wait time from the first contact to resolution is approximately two days, and the average resolution time for the first problem is around 80 hours, and on average, most tickets are resolved within 200 hours.
If we break it down into communication channels, the average time to first response is around 2 minutes for calls and chats and approximately 12 hours for email communication. By contrast, industry leaders can connect live agents with customers in as little as 10 seconds.
Average agent schedule adherence
#AgentScheduleAdherence
Schedule adherence rates:
90% call center
95% live chat
99% ticketing
LiveAgent
Average occupancy rate
#OccupancyRate
The average occupancy rate for help desk agents is around
98%
for companies offering 24/7 support and around 30% for companies using an 8-hour support window.
LiveAgent
Average response time
#ResponseTime
On average, it takes companies
30 seconds to respond if there is no one in line,
3 minutes if there are 1-2 people in line,
6 minutes if there are 3-4 people in line,
10 minutes if there are more than five people in line.
LiveAgent
Average time to first response
#TimeToFirstResponse
The time to first response is around
2 min
for calls and chats and about
12 hours
for email communications.
LiveAgent
Average response time bands
#ResponseTime
Around 20% of customers receive a response within the first hour, 40% within the first 3 hours, and 95% within the first day of submitting their inquiry.
LiveAgent
Average first and full resolution time
#ResolutionTime
The average first resolution time is around
80 hours
and on average, full resolution is achieved within
200 hours
LiveAgent
Average net tickets
#NetTickets
#ReceivedTickets
An average company receives
578 net tickets
The average number of tickets solved
#TicketsSolved
An average company solves
485 tickets per day
3,349 per week
14,794 per month
LiveAgent
Average reply volume
#ReplyVolume
A company with enough support agents can respond to chats and phone calls within
2-10 min
when there is an overload. If there are enough support agents online, email communication takes 2 hours or 4 hours if there are too many tickets.
LiveAgent
Average agent satisfaction
#AgentSatisfaction
In the past
365 days
agents received an average satisfaction rating of
9.08
LiveAgent
Average customer wait time
#CustomerWaitTime
The average wait time from first contact to resolution is approximately
2 days
LiveAgent
Average ticket volume by working hours
#TicketVolume
By working hours, the average ticket volume is
6,594
hours
LiveAgent
Open vs. solved tickets
#OpenVsSolvedTickets
The ratio of opened tickets to solved tickets is usually
2:1
LiveAgent
Average number of departments per help desk software
#NumberOfDepartments
Companies that use help desk software have an average of
10 support
departments
LiveAgent
Average response times on all channels
#ResponseTimes
#AllChannels
The average response time for all channels is
1-3 hr
LiveAgent
Customer service statistics 
Call center statistics 
Help desk statistics 
Live chat statistics 
Knowledge base statistics 
Social media service statistics 