Which Customer Messages Are Going Unanswered? Track Response Times

To find unanswered customer messages, review the people still waiting for a qualifying reply—not just the number of messages your team sent. In Zonitel Office, the Conversations agent-performance report combines that current waiting list with response-time measures and human-versus-bot participation. It is available within Custom Reports, which is marked Beta.

A manager sees plenty of activity and assumes every inquiry was handled. Meanwhile, a customer asking for an estimate remains unanswered in another channel. Volume alone cannot reveal that gap. A short daily review can help your team identify the customer, read the conversation and decide who should take the next step.

Look at the right business, period and channel

Open Analytics → Custom Reports → Conversations → Agent performance. Check the business/location and date range. Filter by channel, such as SMS or WhatsApp, or by agent when you need a narrower view. Use a consistent period when reviewing changes so a busy month is not accidentally compared with a quiet afternoon.

The report's Nobody replied list shows people who wrote within the selected period and still lack a qualifying answer now. It changes as conversations receive replies. It is not a frozen record of who was waiting at the end of a past month. Review the actual exchange and current assignment before following up.

Separate acknowledgment from useful help

An automatic “We received your message” is not the same as answering the customer's question. Automatic acknowledgments do not count as replies in this waiting-list definition. The report distinguishes qualifying bot help from human help, and its typical human response indicator excludes bot replies.

Fictional example: a customer asks whether an item is available. An acknowledgment arrives immediately, but nobody checks the stock. The manager reviews the conversation, assigns a staff member and confirms that a useful reply is sent. The practical goal is an answered question, not just a faster automated greeting.

Use a short review routine

• Review the current unanswered list and inspect each relevant conversation before contacting the customer.
• Assign a clear owner for pending questions, checking whether another teammate is already handling them.
• Compare human response times during and after business hours separately; the customer may have written while the business was closed.
• Identify a recurring cause, such as unclear assignments or a missing business answer, and check whether your process change improves follow-up.

Median response time describes a typical measured wait, not how long a case took to resolve. Some questions need more work than others. Use the figures alongside the conversations, not as an automatic staff ranking. Changes to the currently saved business hours can also alter the historical during-hours and after-hours grouping.

Can one client appear under several agents?

Yes. More than one person can help the same client, so adding agent client counts can exceed the company's distinct-client total. Human and bot groups can also overlap. Treat the report as a tool for finding service gaps, not proof of extra customers or guaranteed recovered sales. Ask your administrator to check access if the report is missing.