Summary
Understand how quickly your team responds to guests with four Communication dashboard widgets. The First Response Time KPI card shows your median first-reply time, the First Response Time Over Time line chart tracks how that median shifts week by week or month by month, the First Response Time by Type bar chart breaks it down by reservation type, and the Response Time Distribution bar chart shows how your response times spread across six time buckets. Together they help you spot slow-response patterns before they affect your reviews.
Adding the widgets to your dashboard
Open Dashboard from the main navigation.
Click Add Widget.
Under the Communication category, select one or more of:
First Response Time — a single KPI card showing your median first-reply time.
First Response Time Over Time — a line chart showing how your median response time changes across the selected period.
First Response Time by Type — a horizontal bar chart breaking down median response time by reservation type (inquiry, request, or booking).
Response Time Distribution — a bar chart showing how your first response times spread across six time buckets (e.g., under 1 hour, 1–4 hours, 4–12 hours, etc.), so you can see whether slow replies are outliers or a pattern.
Click Add to place the widgets on your dashboard.
You can resize and reposition the widgets by dragging them anywhere on your dashboard.
Understanding the data
The First Response Time KPI, Over Time, and By Type widgets all measure the median time between a guest's first message and your team's first reply, calculated over the date range and granularity you have selected on the dashboard. Cancelled and denied reservations are excluded.
The Response Time Distribution widget counts how many first responses fell within each of six time buckets and shows the absolute count as a bar chart. It answers "how many replies did we send within an hour?" rather than "what was the median?"
The by type breakdown splits reservations into three categories:
Inquiry — the guest sent an inquiry before requesting to book.
Request — the guest submitted a booking request that requires your approval.
Booking — the guest booked instantly without a prior inquiry or request.
The over-time and by-type widgets are only available at week or month granularity. If your dashboard is set to a finer granularity, those two widgets will display an error message asking you to switch to week or month view.
Comparing to a previous period
Use the compare selector at the top of your dashboard to overlay a previous period on the response-time widgets, so you can see whether your team is replying faster or slower than before.
The First Response Time KPI card shows the change versus the prior equivalent period. First Response Time Over Time adds a second, muted line for the previous period, aligned so each week or month sits directly above its earlier counterpart. First Response Time by Type and Response Time Distribution place a muted Previous bar beside each current bar, so you can compare by-type times and time-bucket counts side by side.
With no compare period selected, each widget shows only the current period.
What if the widgets show no data?
If the widgets show no data, check that the selected date range includes reservations with guest messages. The calculation requires at least one guest-initiated message and a host or co-host reply within the period. Reservations with no messages are not counted.