Leveraging Hold Time

You and your captive audience deserve better than bread and water!

If your call center is like most call centers, your customers spend some time on hold waiting for a company representative. And likely, your customer’s hold experience is similar to sitting in the dentist’s office… that bland classical music played while waiting for your turn. However, have you noticed that waiting rooms for dentist or doctor offices has changed? Now you get a television with infomercials that entertain, inform and even attempt to sell while you wait. Why don’t call centers do the same with their hold system?

While many systems can only play a recording loop, many provide connections to an external source or even allow for fully-automated scripting and interaction capabilities while callers wait. Here are some tips for yielding a better hold experience:

Set expectations

• Let your callers know how long they might be waiting.
• If your wait times vary significantly during days of the week or time of day, let them know that there are better times to call.
• If there is an event, such as weather or a business condition, that has impacted your normal wait times, let callers know.
• Provide wait time information early and avoid repeating.

Inform

• Provide notices of upcoming events such as cut-off periods, corporate sponsored events, or business closures.
• List information that may be required of callers for their call. For example, proof of identity.

Advertise

• Up-sell opportunities
• Sales or other limited time offers

In addition to these types of features, some systems allow users to continue to use their self-service while waiting in queue. This allows callers to be in queue while still performing some of their transactions in an automated manner. It’s important to let those callers know that their position in queue is assured during this time.

Jim Rush is a Product Development Manager for Syntellect’s Voiyager product line. When he’s not busy creating new features for Syntellect, Jim enjoys woodworking.