If you sell on Instagram, this scene probably feels familiar: you pick up your phone in the morning and see that someone asked "how much is it?" overnight — and now that you finally reply, no answer ever comes back.
At Vardast we measured this "deadly gap" with data.
What the data says
Over the last 14 days we analyzed 6.7 million messages across 1.7 million DM conversations on more than 3,000 sales pages. The headline result:
| Median response time | |
|---|---|
| Human reply (the seller) | ~1 hour |
| Average human reply | ~7 hours (nights and busy days pull the average up) |
| AI assistant | 8 seconds |
A 7-hour average means a big share of questions effectively get answered "tomorrow." And a DM customer, unlike an email lead, is not there tomorrow — they've already bought from the page next door, or forgotten what they wanted.
The unanswered question: the #1 killer of sales
It isn't only speed; we also measured plain non-response. We looked at conversations the seller had joined but then left hanging on the customer's message. After stripping out pleasantries (greetings, thanks, emojis), a clear picture emerged:
Nearly 60% of real drop-offs ended in one specific unanswered question. The top ones, in order:
- Price — the most common unanswered question. The customer is at peak buying intent and gets nothing back.
- Product details — size, color, material, dimensions.
- Shipping — cost and delivery time.
- Availability — "is it in stock?" ... and silence.
The bitter part: none of these four is a hard question. The answer is already in the seller's head (or in their catalog) — there just wasn't anyone behind the phone in that moment.
An unexpected finding: bots are everywhere
In the same data, of the replies that looked "human," roughly half were sent so fast they can't plausibly be human work — other automated responders quietly running on the pages. The DM market moved toward automated replies far earlier than it appears; the competition is no longer "bot or no bot," it's the quality of the answers.
What to do (with Vardast or without)
- The first-hour rule: if you want just one KPI for your DMs, make it this — "what share of messages got answered within the first hour?"
- Four ready answers: price, details, shipping, availability — write them ahead of time for your best-sellers, whether in a phone note or an automated responder.
- Don't lose the nights: a big share of questions arrive outside working hours; that's exactly where the one-hour gap becomes a seven-hour gap.
DM customers aren't patient — but the good news is that keeping them doesn't take a miracle; it just takes those same four questions getting answered the moment they're asked.
مبنا: ۶,۶۹۲,۴۷۷ پیام در ۱,۷۳۴,۹۵۶ گفتوگو روی ۳,۱۹۵ کانالِ فروش (بازهٔ ۱۴ روزهٔ منتهی به ۲ مرداد ۱۴۰۵) + دستهبندیِ خودکارِ ۶۶۷ مکالمهٔ رهاشده. همهٔ اعداد تجمیعی و ناشناساند.
Vardast answers those four questions the moment they're asked — in your brand voice, 24/7, across Instagram, WhatsApp and Telegram.