Median Resolution Time, Intercom

Median minutes from conversation created to closed. How to read it, why it matters, and how to act on it.

Metrics type: Supporting Metrics • Category: Support

Minutes from created_at to close (statistics.time_to_last_close), median.

At a glance

Median Resolution Time is a Support Performance metric tracked from your Intercom workspace. Where first-response time measures how fast you acknowledge a customer, resolution time measures how fast you actually finish the job — created to closed. It is the metric customers feel most: a Blitz shopper does not care that you replied in two minutes if their wrong-size football boots took four days to sort out. The card reports the median (not the mean) so one runaway ticket does not distort the picture, and compares this week against the prior week (7D vsP) so you can see whether the team is speeding up or backing up.

What it counts	The median minutes between a conversation’s created_at and the moment it is closed, using conversation.statistics.time_to_last_close, across conversations closed in the window.
Sample type	API-derived from the Intercom Conversations endpoint, filtered to conversations closed in the window.
Why it matters	Resolution time is the customer-facing outcome metric. Fast first replies followed by slow resolutions still produce frustrated customers and repeat contacts.
Reading the value	Lower is better. The card shows the current 7-day median against the prior 7 days — watch the direction as much as the absolute number. A rising median usually means backlog, complexity, or a staffing shortfall.
Currency	number
Time window	7D vsP
Alert trigger	>1440 min
Sentiment key	resolution_time
Roles	owner, operations

Calculation

Calculated automatically from your Intercom data. Vortex IQ takes every conversation closed in the trailing 7 days, reads statistics.time_to_last_close (seconds from creation to the most recent close), converts to minutes, and takes the median. The vsP suffix means the same calculation is run for the previous 7-day window and shown as a delta. The median deliberately ignores still-open conversations — those age on the Open Backlog Trend and Oldest Open Conversation cards. The alert fires when the median exceeds 1,440 minutes (24 hours).

Worked example

A representative reading for Blitz. This week the card reads 312 minutes (about 5h 12m), up from 268 minutes last week — a 16% slowdown shown in the comparison. That is still well under the 24-hour alert, so no flag fires, but the upward direction is the story. Cross-referencing, you see Reopen Rate ticked up at the same time: agents are closing conversations the customer then reopens, and each reopen extends time_to_last_close. The fix is not “close faster” but “close right” — a macro or QA check before closing return-and-refund threads. Use Vortex Mind to see which tags (returns, sizing, delivery) carry the longest resolution times, and Ask Viq to answer “what’s our median resolution on refund conversations this month?”

Sibling cards merchants should reference together

Card	Why merchants reach for it
ic_resolution_by_agent	Splits this median by agent to find who is fast and who is stuck.
ic_reopen_rate	Reopens re-extend the resolution clock — read them together.
ic_first_response	The acknowledgement-speed counterpart to this resolution-speed metric.
ic_backlog_trend	A rising backlog usually drags median resolution time up next.
ic_avg_parts	More back-and-forth per conversation lengthens resolution time.

Reconciling against the vendor’s own dashboard

Where to look in Intercom’s own dashboard:

Open Reports → Conversations and look for “Median time to close” (sometimes labelled “time to resolution”). You can also confirm individual figures by opening a closed conversation and reading its timeline.

Why the Vortex IQ value may legitimately differ:

Reason	Direction	What to do
Reopen handling. time_to_last_close measures to the last close. A conversation closed, reopened, and closed again counts the longer span; Intercom may report the first close.	Vortex IQ higher	Check whether reopened conversations are inflating the figure.
Business hours vs calendar. Intercom can measure office hours only; Vortex IQ uses wall-clock minutes by default.	Vortex IQ higher	Align both tools to the same time basis.
Mean vs median. A vendor view set to “average” will diverge sharply from this median when a few long tickets exist.	Variable	Confirm both are set to median.

Cross-connector reconciliation: read this with Reopen Rate and Resolution Time by Agent for the full picture. For divergence investigations, use Vortex Mind.

Known limitations / merchant FAQs

Q: How often does Median Resolution Time update? The card refreshes on the standard data refresh (typically every 30-60 minutes for live integrations). For a real-time read, force a manual refresh from the dashboard.

Q: Why does my Intercom report show a different number? The usual causes are reopen handling (time_to_last_close measures to the final close), the business-hours vs calendar setting, and mean-vs-median. Match these before assuming a real divergence.

Q: Does this include conversations that are still open? No. Only conversations closed within the window contribute. Still-open conversations age on the Open Backlog Trend and Oldest Open Conversation cards.

Q: Can I customise the alert threshold? Yes. The >1440 min (24-hour) trigger is configurable per profile in the Alert Rules tab. Set it to your published resolution SLA.

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Tracked live in Vortex IQ Nerve Centre

Median Resolution Time is one of hundreds of KPI pulses Vortex IQ tracks across Intercom and 70+ other ecommerce connectors. Nerve Centre runs the detection layer; Vortex Mind investigates the cause when something moves; Ask Viq lets you interrogate any number in plain English.

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