According to this study, the average response time for companies on Facebook is one hour and 56 minutes. However, that’s not necessarily how often you should respond if you want your brand to be the best in class. Here’s how quickly you should respond to messages on Facebook if you want to gain more customers’ trust.
How The Facebook Algorithm Works
The Facebook Algorithm actually knows how long it takes you to respond to your customers. This is because Facebook wants businesses to help and respond to their customers.
On Business Pages, Facebook tracks and measures the speed of a page’s responses to their customer messages. This is measured by your response rate and response time. Your response rate is the percentage of messages that your page has responded to, while your response time is the average of how long it takes you to respond.
This means that the clock starts ticking when someone sends you a private message until you respond back. Take note: the response rate and time only track message replies that your Page sends manually and via API (such as from a bot).
It doesn’t count instant replies, away messages, messages people send you when you’re away from your inbox and messages marked as spam or done.
How does Facebook calculate Response Rate?
According to Facebook:
A message counts toward your Page’s overall response rate if it’s the first message a person sends your Page after neither of you has sent messages for at least 24 hours. Your Page’s overall response rate is based on messages received in the 30 days prior to the last message that counted toward your response rate. For example, if it’s September 6, and the last message your Page received that counted was on August 30, then your Page’s response rate is based on messages that occurred from August 1 to August 30.
If your Page has received fewer than 10 messages in this time span, your Page’s response rate will be based on the last 10 messages received. If your Page has received fewer than 10 messages total, it’ll be based on all messages ever received.
How does Facebook calculate Response Time?
According to Facebook:
A message counts toward your response time if it’s a response to the first message a person sends your Page after neither of you has sent messages for at least 24 hours.
Your Page’s response time is an average of the fastest 90% of response times to messages received in the 30 days prior to the last message that counted toward your response rate. For example, if it’s September 6, and the last message your Page received that counted was on August 30, then your Page’s response time is based on messages that occurred from August 1 to August 30.
If your Page has received fewer than 10 messages in this time span, your response time will be based on the last 10 messages. If your Page has received fewer than 10 messages total, it’ll be based on all messages ever received. People can see your response time when they visit your Page or when they open a chat with your Page in Messenger.
So, what is the best practice for Facebook response rate and time?
The gold standard is to strive for the “Very Responsive To Messages” Badge, which shows up in the about section of your Page. Think of it as a badge of honour! It signals to your customers that you are a trusted brand that prioritizes supporting customers. Customers would feel more confident in messaging you, which in turn would increase brand trust and loyalty.
To achieve this badge, your page must have a response rate of 90% or more, with a response time of fewer than 15 minutes. When your page has scored the badge, anyone can see it. On another note, if your page doesn’t have the badge, only people who help manage your Page can see the responsiveness info on your Page.
TL;DR:
Ideally, you’ll want to respond to the majority of your customers within the 15-minute range to get the coveted “Very Responsive To Messages” Badge. But if you don’t have the time to respond quickly every time a customer messages, maybe it’s time to consider hiring a community management agency (like us!) to do all the social listening and responding for you.