How to Track and Improve Response Times in HubSpot Service Hub

Response time can make or break customer trust. When people wait too long for help, they lose confidence in your business. But when replies come quickly, customers feel valued and are more likely to stay loyal.

For support teams, tracking response times is the first step to improving them. HubSpot Service Hub provides dashboards, reports, and SLA tracking tools that show how quickly your team responds and where delays occur.

This guide will walk you through how to track response times in HubSpot, set up SLA goals, use reporting to spot problems, and take action to improve speed across your team.

Why Response Times Matter

Response time is one of the most visible signs of good service. Customers notice when they get help right away, and they definitely notice when they don't. Speed affects satisfaction, loyalty, and even revenue.

72% of customers expect a response within 30 minutes of reaching out, making first response time a critical factor for customer satisfaction. If your team can't meet that expectation, customers may leave before you even get a chance to solve their problem.

Tracking response times helps you see where your team is performing well and where they're falling behind. Once you have that data, you can adjust workflows, staffing, and processes to close the gaps.

How Do I Track Response Times in HubSpot Service Hub?

HubSpot Service Hub includes built-in tools for tracking response times across your team. You can see metrics in real time, review historical data, and drill down into individual tickets to understand what's causing delays.

Here’s how you can track response times in HubSpot:

1. Use the Summary Page for Real-Time Insights

The Summary page gives you a high-level view of your team's performance right now. You can see metrics like Time to first reply and Time to close, along with how those numbers compare to yesterday.

This page is helpful for spotting issues as they happen. For example, if you notice that Time to first reply is climbing during a busy afternoon, you can jump in and help the team catch up before customers start waiting too long.

You can also see which team members are available, how many tickets are open, and whether any tickets are overdue on their SLA goals. It's a quick way to check the pulse of your support operation without digging into detailed reports.

2. Track Response Times on the Analyze Page

For a deeper look at performance over time, use the Analyze page. This page includes pre-built reports that track metrics like:

• First reply average over time: See how quickly your team is responding to new tickets and whether that speed is improving or slipping.
• Time to close average over time: Understand how long it takes to fully resolve tickets from start to finish.
• Messages received over time: Track ticket volume so you know when your team is busiest.

You can filter these reports by support rep, team, channel, pipeline, or ticket category. This lets you see whether certain reps are faster than others, or whether tickets from specific channels take longer to resolve.

Once you identify patterns, you can act on them. For example, if chat tickets are taking twice as long to resolve as email tickets, you might need to add more reps to the chat queue or adjust routing rules.

3. Create Custom Reports with the Custom Report Builder

If the pre-built reports don't answer your questions, you can create custom reports using HubSpot's custom report builder. This tool lets you pull in data from tickets, conversations, help desk messages, contacts, and more.

For example, you could create a report that shows:

• What time of day are reps sending the most messages?
• Which reps are taking the longest to reply to customers?
• How do response times vary by ticket priority or channel?

Custom reports give you the flexibility to track exactly what matters most to your team. Once you build a report, you can save it and add it to a dashboard so you can check it regularly.

Does HubSpot Measure SLA Performance?

Yes, HubSpot Service Hub includes SLA tracking to help you measure whether your team is meeting response and resolution goals. 

SLAs (service level agreements) set clear expectations for how quickly tickets should be handled, and HubSpot tracks whether you're hitting those targets. Here’s how:

1. Set Up SLA Goals in Help Desk

You can set service level agreement (SLA) goals to help your support team stay on track with customer expectations by defining goals for ticket response and resolution times. SLA goals can be set for:

• Time to first reply: How quickly a customer gets an initial response.
• Time to next reply: How long it takes for follow-up messages.
• Time to close: How long it takes to fully resolve a ticket.

You can apply SLA goals to all tickets in the help desk, or base them on specific ticket properties like priority, team, source, or pipeline. For example, high-priority tickets might have a 30-minute SLA, while low-priority tickets might have a 24-hour SLA.

You can also set when a ticket's SLA status will change to "Due soon" so your team gets a reminder before missing a deadline. When a ticket is due soon or overdue, a label will appear next to the ticket number in the reply editor so reps know to prioritize it.

2. Pause SLA Timers When Needed

Sometimes tickets need to wait for the customer before your team can take action. HubSpot lets you set conditions that temporarily pause the SLA timer. For example, you might pause the timer when a ticket is on hold or waiting for a customer response.

The timer will automatically resume once the ticket no longer meets the selected criteria. This makes sure your SLA tracking reflects the time your team actually has control over, not time spent waiting on the customer.

3. View SLA Performance in Reports

Once SLAs are set up, you can track how well your team is meeting them. Use the custom report builder to generate reports that provide valuable insights into SLA performance, improving efficiency and customer satisfaction.

You can use ticket properties like Time to first response in SLA hours and Time to close in SLA hours to build reports based on your set SLA goals. You can also use ready-made service SLA reports that are included in the report collections.

For example, you could create a report that shows:

• How many tickets were first responded to on time versus late.
• How many tickets were closed within the SLA goal.
• Which reps or teams are struggling to meet SLA targets.

This data helps you see whether your SLA goals are realistic or whether you need to adjust staffing, routing, or workflows to meet them consistently.

How Can I Improve Response Times in HubSpot?

Tracking response times is the first step. Once you know where delays are happening, you can take action to fix them. Here are the most effective ways to improve response times using HubSpot Service Hub:

1. Automate Ticket Routing

One of the biggest causes of slow response times is tickets sitting unassigned. HubSpot lets you set routing rules to automatically assign tickets to the right person as soon as they come in.

For example, you can route tickets based on:

• Team membership: Send billing questions to finance and technical issues to product support.
• Skills: Route tickets to reps who speak the customer's language or have expertise in a specific area.
• Availability: Only assign tickets to reps who are online and within their working hours.

Automated routing cuts out the delay between when a ticket arrives and when someone starts working on it. This is especially important because 68% of customers who receive a response within one hour are more likely to become repeat customers.

2. Set Ticket Capacity Limits

If some reps are overwhelmed while others have time to spare, response times will suffer. Super admins can set ticket capacity limits for users managing tickets in the help desk to make sure workloads are balanced.

When limits are reached, automatic ticket assignment will pause, so tickets are distributed more evenly across the team. This prevents burnout and keeps response times consistent across all reps.

3. Use Automation Workflows

Automation workflows can handle repetitive tasks and keep tickets moving forward. For example, you can set up workflows to:

• Send automatic replies when a ticket is created so customers know you received their request.
• Escalate tickets that haven't been answered within a certain timeframe to a manager.
• Remind reps when tickets are approaching their SLA deadline.

These small automations add up and prevent tickets from stalling. They also free up your team to focus on solving problems instead of managing logistics.

4. Train Reps on Common Issues

If your reps spend a lot of time researching answers or asking for help, response times will be slow. Building a knowledge base gives reps quick access to the information they need.

You can also use HubSpot's snippets feature to save common responses so reps don't have to type the same answer over and over. This speeds up replies and keeps messaging consistent across the team.

5. Monitor Performance and Coach Your Team

Use HubSpot's reporting tools to track individual rep performance. Look for reps who are consistently faster or slower than the team average, and use that data to coach and train.

For example, if one rep has a much faster first reply time than others, find out what they're doing differently and share those best practices with the rest of the team. If another rep is struggling, offer one-on-one coaching or additional training.

Regular check-ins and performance reviews keep your team accountable and help everyone improve over time.

6. Adjust Staffing Based on Ticket Volume

The Analyze page shows you when ticket volume is highest. Use this data to adjust staffing so you have more reps available during busy times and fewer during slower periods.

For example, if ticket volume spikes every Monday morning, schedule more reps to start early on Mondays. If Friday afternoons are slow, you can shift reps to other projects without hurting response times.

This kind of data-driven scheduling makes sure you always have enough coverage without overstaffing during quiet times.

What Dashboards Help Track Support Performance in Service Hub?

HubSpot Service Hub includes several dashboards and reporting tools that help you track support performance. Here are the most useful ones for monitoring response times:

Summary Page

The Summary page gives you a real-time snapshot of your team's performance. You can see:

• Today's team summary with metrics like open and closed tickets, Time to first reply, Time to close, and CSAT scores.
• Today's insights include customer wait time, changes in new ticket volume, and tickets that met SLA goals.
• Team availability showing which reps are online and who's at max capacity.
• SLA progress showing ticets that are overdue, due soon, or active.

This page is ideal for daily check-ins and identifying issues as they arise.

Analyze Page

The Analyze page includes pre-built reports that track performance over time. You can filter by support rep, team, channel, pipeline, or category to drill down into specific areas.

Reports include:

• Tickets created over time
• First reply average over time
• Average time to close over time
• Messages received over time
• SLA status completion reports

You can also customize these reports or create new ones using the custom report builder.

Custom Dashboards

You can create custom dashboards that combine multiple reports into one view. For example, you could create a dashboard that shows:

• Average first reply time by rep
• Tickets are overdue on SLA goals
• Customer satisfaction scores
• Ticket volume by channel

Custom dashboards let you tailor the view to your team's specific goals and make it easy to share performance data with leadership.

From Tracking to Action

Tracking response times is only useful if you act on what you learn. HubSpot Service Hub gives you the tools to see exactly how fast your team is responding, where delays are happening, and whether you're meeting SLA goals.

Once you have that data, you can improve response times by automating ticket routing, balancing workloads, using workflows to keep tickets moving, and coaching your team based on performance insights.

Fast response times aren't just about efficiency. They're about showing customers that you value their time and that you're ready to help when they need it. 

When you consistently respond quickly, you build trust, improve satisfaction, and create the kind of service experience that turns customers into loyal advocates.

Get Expert Help Tracking and Improving Response Times

Origin 63 helps businesses set up HubSpot Service Hub so you can track performance, meet SLA goals, and deliver faster, more reliable customer service. 

We'll configure reporting, automation, and routing so your team has the tools they need to improve response times and build stronger customer relationships.

Talk to Origin 63 today to get started.