WhatsApp response time calculator
Find out how many people you need to reply to WhatsApp chats as fast as you promise. Enter your chat volume and reply target, and see how your current team measures up.
Your WhatsApp chats
Reading, replying and wrapping up.
1 if people answer one chat at a time.
80% is a common goal.
When chats arrive
Plan for your busiest hour, not the average, or replies slow down when it matters.
People you need
7
to reply to 80% within 5 min
With 6 people now
74%
answered within 5 min
Average wait with your team
4 min
How busy each person is
83%
Team size and reply speed
- 4 people-
- 5 people-
- 6 people74%
- 7 people94%
- 8 people99%
- 9 people100%
Share of chats answered within 5 min, by team size.
An estimate with the Erlang C model. Breaks, meetings and very uneven days need extra people on top.
How to use it
- 1
Describe your chats
How many new chats you get a day, over how many hours, and how long each takes to handle.
- 2
Set your target
Reply within so many minutes, for a share of chats, like 80% within 5 minutes.
- 3
See the team you need
The number of people to hit it, and how your current team does against it.
How the calculation works
The calculator uses Erlang C, the queueing model support teams and call centres have used for decades. It assumes chats arrive at random through the day and that the next free person picks up the next chat.
From your numbers it works out:
- The workload: chats an hour × minutes per chat, spread over your team.
- The chance a chat has to wait, and how long the average wait is.
- The share answered within your target, for each team size, so you can see where it tips over.
Two people at 90% busy reply far slower than three people at 60%. Waiting time climbs steeply as a team gets close to full, which is why the busy hour matters more than the daily average.
Questions
Something else? Ask us.
What is a good WhatsApp response time?
What is Erlang C?
What does chats one person handles at once mean?
Why is my team shown as overloaded?
Does this include breaks and time off?
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