REFERENCE
Everything you can track on WhatsApp sales conversations.
Forty-seven metrics, grouped by the question a manager is actually asking. Each has a definition and a line on what to do when it moves.
- 47 metrics
- 7 groups
- Updated 2026-08-31
- 01Median first response8m 12s
- 19Dormant conversations14
- 21Zero-touch accounts6
- 10Unique customers engaged this week41
Every figure on the screen is a catalogue entry, defined below.
Median first reply
Slowest rep: 38 min
Customers left waiting over 24 hours
Across 4 reps
Accounts nobody contacted at all this week
Zero-touch
Unique customers engaged
Down 12% on last week
First reply by rep
p50 · minutes- Chris11m
- Nina4m
- Marcus22m
- Hannah9m
- Sofia6m
- Derek38m
Waiting longest
14 total- 27h
Jordan M.
“Any update on my delivery?”
assigned Marcus Webb
- 31h
Andre P.
“Could you send the price list?”
assigned Derek Owens
23 of the 47 are shown here with a real figure
There are forty-seven things worth measuring on a WhatsApp sales team, and they group into seven questions: are we replying, how many customers did we engage, what are we losing quietly, who is carrying the team, what is being said, what happens if someone resigns, and is the tool working. Definitions for all of them are below.
Example values come from the demonstration dataset. A green rule marks the 23 metrics that carry one; the other 24 are defined but not illustrated with a figure, and show a dash instead.
Jump to a group
Group 01Responsiveness08 metrics
“Are my staff replying?”
01–08 of 47 in the catalogue
- 8m 12s
Median first response
- 14
Unanswered right now
- 27h
Longest wait
| # | Metric | Example | Definition | What to do with it |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 01 | Median first response | 8m 12s | How long a customer waits before anyone answers | Compare it against the target you would defend to a customer. If the median is fine but the p90 is not, the problem is a few threads, not the team. |
| 02 | First response, p90 | – | The wait at the slow end: one customer in ten waits at least this long. | This is the number a customer actually complains about. Medians hide it. |
| 03 | Unanswered right now | 14 | Live count of people waiting on a reply | Work it as a queue, worst first. It is the one metric in this catalogue you can fix before lunch. |
| 04 | Longest wait | 27h | Your most-ignored customer, by name | Open the thread. A number this size is almost always one specific thing that went wrong, not a trend. |
| 05 | Response rate | – | Share of inbound customer messages that ever got a reply at all. | A falling rate with a steady median means you are answering the easy ones and dropping the rest. |
| 06 | Business-hours response time | – | First response measured against your working hours, so an overnight message is not counted as a twelve-hour failure. | Use this one in reviews with reps. The raw figure is for spotting coverage gaps, not for judging people. |
| 07 | Read-but-not-replied | – | Messages a rep opened and did not answer. | Distinguishes 'did not see it' from 'saw it and moved on'. The second is a coaching conversation. |
| 08 | After-hours reply share | – | Share of outbound messages sent outside your stated working hours. | High is not automatically good. It usually means daytime coverage is short somewhere. |
Group 02Engagement08 metrics
“How many customers did we engage?”
09–16 of 47 in the catalogue
- 41
Unique customers engaged this week
- 18
New conversations started
- 63
Quotes and price lists sent
| # | Metric | Example | Definition | What to do with it |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 09 | Messages sent and received | – | Raw volume, split by direction. | A denominator, not a goal. Use it to sanity-check any ratio built on top of it. |
| 10 | Unique customers engaged this week | 41 | Actual humans spoken to | The honest measure of a week's selling. Volume can be one customer messaged forty times. |
| 11 | New conversations started | 18 | Split by who messaged first | If the customer always starts, you have an inbound service desk, not a sales team. |
| 12 | Outbound-initiated share | – | Share of new threads your team opened rather than answered. | Track it per rep. It is the clearest signal of who is prospecting and who is waiting. |
| 13 | Conversation depth | – | Median number of exchanges before a thread goes quiet. | Shallow threads that die after two messages usually mean the first reply did not answer the question. |
| 14 | Media sent | – | Images, catalogues and documents sent to customers. | In apparel and property this is the closest thing to a product demonstration. |
| 15 | Voice notes exchanged | – | Volume of voice messages, both directions. | Voice-heavy reps are often the fastest and the least auditable. Worth knowing which. |
| 16 | Quotes and price lists sent | 63 | The closest proxy for real selling | Compare it with unique customers engaged. Forty conversations and six quotes is a qualifying problem. |
Group 03Coverage09 metrics
“What are we quietly losing?”
17–25 of 47 in the catalogue
- 14
Dormant conversations
- 6
Zero-touch accounts
- 3
Never answered at all
| # | Metric | Example | Definition | What to do with it |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 17 | Threads with no owner | – | Conversations on a company number that no named rep is accountable for. | Assign them. An unowned thread is the one nobody notices going quiet. |
| 18 | Time since last contact | – | For every account, how long since anyone spoke to them. | Sort descending once a week. It is the cheapest pipeline review you will ever run. |
| 19 | Dormant conversations | 14 | Waiting longer than your threshold | Set the threshold to the point where you would be embarrassed, not to the point where the list is short. |
| 20 | Dormant value at risk | – | Dormant threads where a price or a quote was discussed. | This is the subset worth chasing today. The rest can wait. |
| 21 | Zero-touch accounts | 6 | Customers nobody contacted at all | Usually a distribution problem, not a laziness problem. Check how leads are being handed out. |
| 22 | Reopened conversations | – | Threads that went quiet and then came back. | A customer who returns after silence is telling you the follow-up would have worked. |
| 23 | Follow-up promised, not kept | 2 | Threads where a rep said they would come back and then did not. | The most damaging failure in this group, and the least visible without a record. |
| 24 | Coverage by team | – | Dormant and zero-touch counts split by team. | Tells you whether the problem is a person or a rota. |
| 25 | Never answered at all | 3 | Messaged us, got nothing back, ever | Three is three real people who tried to buy from you. Read them yourself. |
Group 04Performance07 metrics
“Who's carrying the team?”
26–32 of 47 in the catalogue
- 4m / 38m
Fastest vs slowest rep
- ±31%
Workload imbalance
- -24%
Activity trend
| # | Metric | Example | Definition | What to do with it |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 26 | Fastest vs slowest rep | 4m / 38m | First-response spread across the team | A ten-fold spread is a process gap, not a talent gap. Find out what the fast one does differently. |
| 27 | Workload imbalance | ±31% | How unevenly the work is spread | Before you performance-manage the slow rep, check they are not carrying a third more threads. |
| 28 | Conversations handled per rep | – | Distinct threads each rep worked in the period. | The denominator for every per-rep comparison. Never rank without it. |
| 29 | Reply share within team | – | Who is actually answering the shared numbers. | On a shared line, one person usually absorbs most of it. That person is your retention risk. |
| 30 | First-touch to quote time | – | How long from a customer's first message to a price being sent. | The most controllable number in your sales cycle. |
| 31 | Activity trend | -24% | A rep slowing down, 30-day view | Ask before it becomes a resignation. A sustained fall usually precedes one. |
| 32 | Consistency | – | How much a rep's response time varies day to day. | An erratic rep and a slow rep need different conversations. |
Group 05Conduct07 metrics
“What's being said that I don't know about?”
33–39 of 47 in the catalogue
- 23
Deleted messages captured this week
- 4
Discount mentions above threshold
- 1
Personal number shared
| # | Metric | Example | Definition | What to do with it |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 33 | Deleted messages captured this week | 23 | With original content intact | Most are typos. Read them anyway. The ones that are not are the reason this metric exists. |
| 34 | Discount mentions above threshold | 4 | Margin given away without asking | Set the threshold at the discount you would have wanted a phone call about. |
| 35 | Personal number shared | 1 | A customer moved off the company line | The relationship just left your archive. Address it the day it happens, not at handover. |
| 36 | Edited messages | – | Messages changed after sending, with every prior version kept. | An edit after a customer has replied is worth a look. An edit two seconds later is a typo. |
| 37 | Deletion rate per 1,000 messages | – | Deletions normalised by volume, so a busy rep is not flagged for being busy. | Compare reps on this, never on the raw count. |
| 38 | Promises and commitments made | 17 | Delivery dates, prices and guarantees stated in writing to a customer. | The record you will want the day a customer says 'your man promised me'. |
| 39 | Escalation language | – | Threads where a customer's tone signals they are about to give up or complain. | Catch it in the thread, not in a review on a public page. |
Group 06Continuity05 metrics
“What if they resign?”
40–44 of 47 in the catalogue
- 38%
Relationship concentration
- 27
Customers at risk if Derek leaves
- 12mo
Archive depth
| # | Metric | Example | Definition | What to do with it |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 40 | Single-owner accounts | – | Customers only ever spoken to by one person. | The raw list behind the concentration figure. Introduce a second name to the top ones. |
| 41 | Relationship concentration | 38% | Customers who know only one person here | This is your key-person risk expressed as a percentage. It only moves if you deliberately move it. |
| 42 | Customers at risk if a rep leaves | 27 | Named, with open deals | Run it for every rep, not just the one you are worried about. |
| 43 | Open threads at handover | – | Everything unresolved on a departing rep's numbers, on their last day. | The handover report. Hand it to the next person instead of hoping for an honest verbal one. |
| 44 | Archive depth | 12mo | How much history you actually hold | Check what a competitor's plan does at month seven before comparing prices. |
Group 07Health03 metrics
“Is the tool working?”
45–47 of 47 in the catalogue
- 99.94%
Session uptime this month
- 1.4s
Capture lag, p95
- 1
Number needing attention
| # | Metric | Example | Definition | What to do with it |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 45 | Session uptime this month | 99.94% | Per number, published monthly | Ours is on the reliability page. Ask anyone you compare us with for theirs. |
| 46 | Capture lag, p95 | 1.4s | Message sent to message archived | The gap between something being said and you being able to see it. |
| 47 | Number needing attention | 1 | A rep needs to re-scan | Re-linking takes about a minute. Everything already captured is unaffected while it waits. |
ABOUT THIS LIST
Questions about the list itself
What metrics should I track for a WhatsApp sales team?
Start with four: median first response time, the number of customers currently waiting on a reply, unique customers engaged in the period, and the count of conversations that have gone quiet past your threshold. Those four answer the questions a sales manager already asks out loud, and everything else on this page is a refinement of them.
Why 47 and not a shorter list?
Because a shorter list would be the ones that are easy to measure rather than the ones that matter. Most teams should watch four or five of these. The rest are here so that when you have a specific question, such as whether one rep is carrying the team or what a resignation costs you, the definition already exists.
Can I get these without buying anything?
The definitions are yours to use however you like, including in a spreadsheet you build yourself. The measurement is the hard part: nearly all of these need a complete record of the conversations, including what was deleted, and that is what a tool is for.
See these on your own numbers.
Fifteen minutes, your data, no slides. Most managers find at least one number they did not expect.
WAOversight is an independent product and is not affiliated with or endorsed by WhatsApp or Meta.