What percentage of website chat conversations happen outside business hours?

44.7% of storefront chats start outside 09:00 to 17:59 in the visitor's local time, based on 5,565 real conversations on 182 live Chatonbo assistants between March and September 2026. Sunday is the highest, with 48.2% of its chats after hours, and 54.3% of all chats happen on a phone. That is the case for an assistant that answers on its own: almost half of the questions arrive when nobody is at the desk. The full study with methodology is at chatonbo.com/research/state-of-ecommerce-chat-2026.

Updated October 3, 2026