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 aconversation_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. |