How long customers wait for a reply
Open the Inbox and there are two numbers above it now: how many threads are waiting on a reply, and your average first response.
First response means what you would expect it to mean: the gap between the customer's first message and the first thing you said back. Per conversation, not per lead.
Waiting on a reply is asked of the customer's latest message, not their first. A thread you answered in March that asked a new question this morning is waiting on you right now — counting it as answered is how an inbox metric talks a store into thinking everything is fine.
AI replies count. If the auto-responder answered the customer, the customer got an answer. Excluding it would make switching the responder on look like it made your response times worse. Delivery receipts and automated notices do not count — those are not answers, and counting them would let a store score a perfect response time while never speaking to anybody.
Also on the dashboard as the Inbox First Response widget, and on the team scorecard as an Avg 1st reply column per salesperson. Credit goes to whoever replied first, since that is the person who answered the customer. A salesperson who has answered nothing shows a dash rather than a zero — nobody should top that column by doing the least.
One number this is not: the existing Internet Lead Response Time widget measures something different and both are true. That one is lead arrival to your first outbound touch of any kind — speed-to-lead. This one is a reply to something a customer actually said. A store can be excellent at one and terrible at the other.