Measuring Waiting Time in Support Processes

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Support teams face a constant challenge: reducing ticket resolution time while maintaining clear communication. One of the biggest bottlenecks? Waiting time—the period when a ticket is either waiting for customer input or waiting for support action.

Long waiting times lead to frustrated customers, inefficiencies, and increased workload. But what if you could pinpoint the exact causes of delays and take strategic action to eliminate them?

With the Time in Status app, you can measure, analyze, and optimize waiting times in your support process. Here’s how you can turn data into actionable improvements.

1. Identify Bottlenecks with a Regular Time in Status Report

The Time in Status report shows how much time tickets spend in each workflow status. To find inefficiencies, focus on:

 ✅ Waiting for customer – Time lost while waiting for customer responses. 

✅ Waiting for support – Delays caused by internal processes or backlog.

🚀 Tip: Filter your report by priority level to see if high-priority tickets are stuck in these statuses for too long. If they are, it’s time to improve escalation procedures!

2. Create a ‘Total Waiting Time’ Metric for Clearer Insights

Instead of analyzing statuses separately, create a custom status group called Total Waiting Time, combining:

• Waiting for customer
• Waiting for support

📊 Why this matters: This metric provides a quick, high-level view of total waiting time per ticket, making it easier to spot trends.

🔍 Actionable Insight: If this metric is consistently high, consider automating customer reminders or optimizing support workflows to reduce unnecessary delays.

3. Track Performance Over Time with the Average Time in Status Report

Understanding daily and weekly trends helps teams identify systemic issues and compare data across these periods. The Average Time in Status report breaks down how long tickets spend in each status over (as you can see in the image below): 

📅 Daily trends – Spot sudden spikes in waiting times. 

📆 Weekly trends – Understand long-term inefficiencies.

Note that in the Average time report in the app, you can set the breakdown by periods hourly, daily, weekly, monthly, and quarterly.

⚡ Quick Fix: If you see increasing waiting times over multiple weeks, reassess staffing levels, ticket triage rules, or SLA policies.

4. Use Area Charts to Make Waiting Time Data Actionable

Visualizing data helps managers see the big picture quickly. The Area Chart for Average Time in Status provides:

• A breakdown of time spent in different statuses.
• A percentage view of all time spent in statuses, including status group Total Waiting Time.

📌 Pro Tip: Share these charts in your team’s weekly review meetings. They create urgency around reducing waiting times and help drive process improvements.

5. Analyze Status Count to Identify Process Inefficiencies

The Status Count Report reveals how often tickets enter specific statuses. By focusing on: 

✅ Waiting for customer 

✅ Waiting for support 

✅ Status group Total waiting time

…you can see which tickets frequently stall in the process.

💡 What to do: If certain ticket types repeatedly get stuck, review your workflows or customer communication templates to prevent unnecessary back-an.

6. Measure Team Efficiency with a Summary Pivot Table

For a high-level performance review, use a pivot table summarizing:

📌 The number of closed tasks per agent in the last 30 days. 

📌 The total time spent in Waiting for Support.

🔹 Bonus: Generate a column chart from this data to visualize performance gaps and identify who needs additional support or training.

Take Action: Optimize Your Support Process Now

Measuring and analyzing waiting time isn’t just about tracking numbers—it’s about identifying inefficiencies and making strategic improvements.

🎯 Next Steps: 

✔ Implement Total Waiting Time metric.

 ✔ Set benchmarks for average waiting times and review them weekly. 

✔ Automate ticket reminders to reduce Waiting for Customer delays. 

✔ Optimize agent workload distribution to lower Waiting for Support time.

By using the Time in Status app strategically, you can reduce waiting time, improve customer satisfaction, and boost team efficiency.

Start optimizing today and turn waiting time into winning time!