Business Consulting
Korean customer inquiries: how fast, where
In Korea, how long people wait depends on where the inquiry landed. Here are the places inquiries arrive, the reply speed expected at each, how a team in another time zone splits the day, the answers to prepare in advance, and three ways to put a Korean-speaking person in place.
In Korea, someone who sends an inquiry usually expects a first reply on the same day. No law fixes that time. Other sellers on the same channel are simply answering at that pace, so once a day passes, silence reads as no answer. The first thing an overseas team decides is not headcount. It is which channel gets a reply within how many hours, written down as a number.
Where do inquiries arrive?
Each place brings different questions, and they differ in whether other people can see them. An unanswered question sitting in a public place is visible to the next person who looks. So sort the places first.
| Place | Questions that arrive | Visible to others |
|---|---|---|
| Product Q&A on a marketplace listing | Pre-purchase checks — specs, stock, delivery time | Yes |
| Order inquiries on a marketplace | After ordering — delays, exchanges, refunds | No |
| Own-store contact form or email | Long, specific questions; bulk orders | No |
| Messenger chat | Short questions — a slow reply ends the chat | No |
| Social network comments and DMs | Product interest, collaboration offers | Comments are |
| Replies under customer reviews | Reviews with a question mixed in | Yes |
How long do people wait in each place?
Counting a first reply and a resolution separately makes this manageable. A first reply says "received, and here is what is happening now." A resolution is the question actually being settled. The figures below are not rules. They are what people commonly expect in that place.
| Place | First reply | Resolution |
|---|---|---|
| Messenger chat | Within minutes | Inside the same conversation |
| Product Q&A | Within 1 business day | 1–2 business days |
| Order and delivery inquiries | Within 1 business day | A notice at each change of stage |
| Contact form or email | 1 business day | 2–3 business days |
| Public comments | Within 1 day | Within 1 day |
Write business days and calendar days as separate things. Korean public holidays differ from those in your country, and several times a year a holiday run stretches over a few days. Check that year's holidays once at the start of the year, copy them into the team calendar, and post a notice in each place before a long run begins.
How does a team in another time zone split the day?
Korea runs on UTC+9. Start by writing your own working hours in Korean time. Even if only 3 hours overlap, aiming those 3 hours at the Korean afternoon puts a person on most of the pre-purchase questions.
| Korean time | What arrives | If your team is offline then |
|---|---|---|
| 09:00–12:00 | Follow-ups to last night, order checks | Clear as the first batch when work starts |
| 12:00–18:00 | Pre-purchase questions | Assign here first for live human replies |
| 18:00–23:00 | Pre-purchase questions rise again | Acknowledge only; handle next shift |
| 23:00–09:00 | Few | A notice stating the next handling time |
Your real distribution shows up after counting your own inquiry log for two weeks. Count the volume per hour, then make the two busiest blocks the hours a person is on.
How do you prepare answers to the questions that keep coming?
Gather the last 4 weeks of inquiries and group identical questions. A handful of groups will cover most of them. Prepare a Korean answer for each group and replies still go out when the overlap is short. Start with these groups.
- Delivery time, and which stage the parcel is at now
- Stock and restock timing
- Exchange and refund steps, and who pays the cost
- Specifications, measurements, what is in the box
- Payment methods and receipts
- Who pays the charges added on import
- The hours during which an answer is available
Write the sentence in your own language first, translate it into Korean, then have someone who reads Korean revise it once. Keep every Korean reply in the polite form — mixing sentence endings reads as rude. Values that change, such as dates, amounts and durations, stay out of the stored sentence: leave a blank and fill in that day's value when you answer. Keep the same content at different lengths per place — two or three lines in a public place, the full procedure in an email.
How do you put someone in place who answers in Korean?
There are three ways. They are not alternatives to choose between; they stack in layers.
| Way | What it covers | What it costs you |
|---|---|---|
| An in-house Korean speaker | Answers on the product and on exceptions | Hiring, and the time gap stays |
| A contact based in Korea | A person is there during Korean hours | Feeding product information and fixing their answering scope |
| Automated replies | A first reply goes out around the clock | Cannot take a question it has not seen |
Automated replies cover receipt, a contact in Korea covers procedure, an in-house person covers the product and the exceptions. Split it that way and a short overlap still works. Two automated replies in a row, though, read as no answer at all, so set the second one to hand over to a person. And write the answering authority in two lines: how far a refund can be approved on the spot, and which inquiries go up to head office.
What do you send when the answer is late?
"We are checking" on its own does not read as an answer. It becomes one when it carries the time of the next contact. Three lines are enough.
- Restate what came in, in one line — what was asked
- State the stage you are at — how far you have checked
- State the next contact time in Korean time — a date and a time block, not "tomorrow morning"
Send again at the promised time even if nothing is settled. "No conclusion yet" is still contact. Keep that one message and inquiries stop piling up, however many days the resolution takes.
What to do today
Build one table. In the left column list every place an inquiry can arrive. In the right column write a number for each: how many hours until the first reply. Then convert your team's working hours into Korean time and add them as a line at the bottom. It takes 30 minutes. Once the table is filled in, it shows you which hours need a person.
