19/10/2026
Average Resolution Time
Average resolution time is how long it takes, on average, from a customer's first message to the problem being solved. It covers the whole wait, not only the first reply or the minutes an agent spends working.
What Counts in Average Resolution Time
Only resolved tickets count, measured from the moment a ticket is created to the moment it's marked solved or closed. Tickets still open are left out, so the slowest ones can be missing from the number.
Help desks treat reopened tickets differently.
In Zendesk, full resolution time runs from creation to the most recent solve, and Help Scout counts the last close as the resolution. Gorgias measures resolution time to the last close and leaves out a ticket that has been reopened.
State business hours or calendar hours, and say whether time spent waiting on the customer counts.
With a 9 to 5 schedule, a ticket opened on Friday at 4 pm and solved on Monday at 10 am, took 2 business hours. In calendar time, it took 66 hours.
How to Calculate Average Resolution Time
Average resolution time = total resolution time of the tickets resolved in the period ÷ the number of tickets resolved
Report the median beside the average. Zendesk's report recipe for full resolution time displays the median.
Hypothetical week
- Tickets resolved: 10
- Resolution times: Nine at 2 hours, one at 168 hours while waiting on a supplier
- Average: 18.6 hours
- Median: 2 hours
The one slow ticket moves the average to 18.6 hours, while the median stays at 2 hours.
Then split the figure into tickets an AI agent resolved and tickets a person resolved. A blended number hides which customers waited for people.
Why Average Resolution Time Matters
Split by who resolved each ticket, average resolution time shows whether customers wait for answers or for people.
Wonderchat answers from a team's own help center and shows the source on every reply. It resolves about 75% of evaluated conversations without a person, and when a person is needed, it hands over with the full conversation attached.
Average Resolution Time vs Handling Time and Contact Center Benchmarks
Average resolution time isn't average handling time, which counts the time spent on one contact, from talk and hold time to after-contact work. A ticket can take five minutes of work and two days to resolve.
Benchmarks often mix channels too. Medallia describes "around five to seven minutes" as the general benchmark for contact centers, with no channel or source named, while ticket data runs in hours.
Frequently Asked Questions
How is average resolution time calculated?
Add up the time from creation to resolution for every ticket resolved in the period, then divide by the number of those tickets. Report the median beside it, and state business or calendar hours.
What is a good average resolution time?
Set your target from your own median by channel. For scale, Freshworks, the company behind Freshdesk, in its Customer Service Benchmark Report 2023, put the 2022 median ticket resolution time at 32 hours 16 minutes, from a dataset of more than 5.3 billion tickets.
What is the difference between resolution time and first response time?
First response time stops at the first real reply. Resolution time stops when the problem is solved. A team can reply in five minutes and still take two days to resolve, so track both.
