Rating Response Rate, Intercom

The share of closed Intercom conversations that received a customer rating over 30 days — the coverage figure that tells you how trustworthy your CSAT really is. How to read it, why it matters, and how to act on it.

Metrics type: Supporting Metrics • Category: Helpdesk / Customer support

The percentage of rateable (closed) conversations that actually received a conversation_rating over 30 days — the sample-size check that tells you how much to trust every other CSAT card.

At a glance

Rating Response Rate is a customer-satisfaction metric tracked from your Intercom workspace. It is the quiet but essential companion to every CSAT card: the share of closed conversations your customers actually rated. CSAT measures how happy the customers who rated are; this card measures how many bothered to rate — and therefore how representative that satisfaction number is. For the Blitz founder, a 92% CSAT built on a 4% response rate is a feel-good illusion; the same 92% on a 45% response rate is a result you can stand behind. Read this card first to know how much weight the others can carry.

What it counts	The percentage of rateable conversations (those closed in the window, where Intercom would have invited a rating) that received any conversation_rating at all (1-5★) over the last 30 days. It counts coverage, not sentiment — a 1★ and a 5★ both count equally as “rated.”
Sample type	API-derived from the Intercom conversations endpoint. Vortex IQ counts conversations carrying a conversation_rating and divides by the closed conversations eligible to be rated in the window.
Why it matters	Response rate is the confidence interval around your CSAT. Low coverage means your satisfaction scores are driven by a self-selecting minority — often the most delighted and the most furious — and can swing wildly on a handful of ratings. Lifting response rate makes every other satisfaction card more reliable and gives you a fuller read on the silent majority.
Reading the value	Read it as a trust gauge for the CSAT family. A healthy response rate (commonly 15-40% for ecommerce support, depending on how you ask) means CSAT is representative; a thin one means treat CSAT directionally and avoid per-agent conclusions on small samples. Watch the direction too — a falling response rate quietly undermines every CSAT read.
Currency	percent
Time window	30D
Alert trigger	— (no threshold; monitored for direction)
Sentiment key	—
Roles	owner, operations

Calculation

Vortex IQ divides the number of conversations that received a conversation_rating (any value 1-5★) by the number of rateable conversations — those closed in the 30-day window where Intercom presented a rating request. The result is a coverage percentage. This card has no alert threshold by design: it is context for the other satisfaction cards rather than an operational alarm. Use it to qualify the denominator behind CSAT, CSAT Trend, and CSAT by Agent.

Worked example

A representative reading of Rating Response Rate for Blitz. The headline CSAT gauge reads a glowing 95%, and the founder is ready to put it on the homepage. Then you open this card: response rate is 6%. Of roughly 1,100 closed conversations last month, only 66 were rated. That 95% rests on the 66 most-motivated customers — and motivated customers skew positive after a quick win or negative after a disaster, with the quiet middle absent entirely. You make two moves: switch the rating request from email-only to an in-conversation prompt right after close, and shorten the ask. Over the next 30 days response rate climbs to 31% — about 340 ratings — and CSAT settles to a truer 88%. It is a lower number but a real one, and now CSAT by Agent has enough per-agent samples to be worth acting on. To trace which channels under-collect ratings, open Vortex Mind; to ask “what’s our rating response rate by channel this month?” in plain English, use Ask Viq.

Sibling cards merchants should reference together

Card	Why merchants reach for it
ic_csat_score	The number this card qualifies — never read CSAT without checking its response rate.
ic_csat_trend	A CSAT trend on thin coverage is volatile; this card tells you how much to trust the slope.
ic_csat_by_agent	Per-agent CSAT needs enough ratings per agent — response rate sets the floor for that.
ic_handled_by_agent	The volume side: handled conversations are the denominator response rate samples from.
ic_volume_by_channel	Response rates vary by channel; pair the two to see where rating prompts under-collect.

Reconciling against the vendor’s own dashboard

Where to look in Intercom’s own dashboard:

In Intercom, open Reports → Customer satisfaction. The report shows the number of conversations rated alongside the number eligible, and many workspaces expose a “response rate” or “coverage” figure directly. If yours does not, divide the rated count by the closed/rateable count for the same date range — that is exactly what this card computes.

Why the Vortex IQ value may legitimately differ:

Reason	Direction	What to do
Denominator definition. Vortex IQ uses rateable (closed, rating-invited) conversations; Intercom may divide by all closed conversations or by conversations where a rating was actually sent.	Variable	Confirm the denominator Intercom’s report uses.
Rating-request settings. Whether a rating is offered depends on your workspace rules (channel, bot vs human, reopen). Conversations never offered a rating may or may not count in the base.	Variable	Review which conversations are configured to request ratings.
Window edges. A conversation closed late in the window but rated after it ends may count as rateable-but-unrated until the rating lands.	Marginal	Allow for late-arriving ratings before judging the figure.
Time zone. Workspace time zone vs merchant reporting time zone shifts boundary conversations.	Marginal	Confirm time-zone match.

Cross-connector reconciliation: because response rate sets the reliability of every other CSAT card, read it before drawing conclusions from Negative-Rated Conversations or CSAT by Agent. For divergence investigations, use Vortex Mind.

Known limitations / merchant FAQs

Q: How often does Rating Response Rate update? The card refreshes on the standard data refresh (typically every 30-60 minutes). The denominator (closed conversations) settles quickly, while the numerator keeps ticking up as customers submit late ratings.

Q: Why does my Intercom number differ? Almost always the denominator. Vortex IQ divides by rateable conversations; Intercom may divide by all closed conversations or only those where a rating was actually sent. Match the base before comparing.

Q: What is a good response rate? There is no universal target, which is why this card has no alert threshold. For ecommerce support, in-conversation prompts often reach 20-40% while email-only asks sit in single digits. Track your own baseline and aim to lift it; a rising rate makes every CSAT card more trustworthy.

Q: Why does this card have no alert trigger? By design. It is context, not an alarm — the figure you read before trusting the other satisfaction cards. You can still monitor its direction in Nerve Centre and set a custom watch in the Alert Rules tab if you want to be warned when coverage falls.

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Tracked live in Vortex IQ Nerve Centre

Rating Response Rate 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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