Reports: Chat

The Chat report is all about seeing volume, efficiency, and team productivity when using Beacon with live chat over time.

Note: The Chat report only appears in the menu if you've created a chat-enabled Beacon. Get started with Beacon here: Beacon Jumpstart Guide.

Standard plans can report on the last 2 years of data. Plus and Pro plans can report on data for the lifetime of the account.

Users with the Reports: View reports permission can view the Chat report data for any Inboxes they can access.

Report Overview

What does our overall chat volume look like?

Volume of chat messages helps you plan and shape your overall support strategy. Is our chat accessible to our customers on our site or app? Are we missing opportunities to assist customers by missing chats? Chat is more popular on Thursdays, should we have more team members available to chat then?

How long are customers waiting to be connected to our team?

A long waiting time for a chat can definitely lead to missed chats and unsatisfied customers. Keep an eye on this number to make sure you're meeting your customers' expectations.

How long are customers waiting for a reply in active chats?

A Response Time of more than a few minutes in chat can feel like a lifetime to the customer. If this is long, you can investigate ways to reduce that time. Take a look at Saved replies for Chat which allow your team quick and easy access to standard or simple responses. How many chat sessions are your team members trying to tackle at once? Think about reducing the Maximum Chats setting for your team - they may be spreading their focus too thin.

How long do our chat conversations last?

An overall high chat time might be reduced by reducing that Response Time, but take a deeper dive with the Messages per Chat metric to see if your customers just have a lot to say.

Metric Definitions

Chats using third party integrations are counted in the Chat Conversations metric only. The rest of the report only shows data from chats using Help Scout's Beacon.

Chat Conversations
Total chat conversations, including missed and completed chats, as well as any third party chat integrations. This is the only metric on the Chat report that includes non-Beacon chats.

Completed Chats
Chat conversations that were accepted and eventually ended by either the Help Scout User or the visitor.

Missed Chats
Chat conversations that were not accepted, which usually means no one was available and the customer's question moved to email. This will include any chat session that wasn't connected with a User.

Wait Time
The average amount of time visitors waited between initiating the chat in Beacon and a Help Scout User accepting or being assigned that chat. Missed chats do not count towards this metric. Note: If the Require Email option is on, the visitor initiates the chat when they enter their email address.

Duration
The average time between visitors being connected with a Help Scout User and the chat being ended by either party.

Chats per Day
Average chats per day, including both missed and completed chats.

Response Time
The average amount of time a customer spends waiting for a User reply between chat messages.

Response time is only counted if/when you reply to the customer. If the chat has no replies, no response times are calculated.
Assigning, updating tags or adding notes to chats will not impact response time at all.
If you reply, then send additional replies to the customer before the customer responds, only the first response is counted towards average response time.
If the customer replies twice before you reply, response time is calculated from the first customer reply to the time a User replies.

Messages per Chat
The average number of messages sent by Help Scout users in a chat session.

Duration
The average amount of time a chat lasts once it is accepted.