No business enjoys keeping their callers on hold. It’s not something a company sets out to do. Often businesses just don’t have the resources or the know-how to rescue their customers from interminable hold times. But today I read a disturbing article about the lasting impact hold times have on consumers—effects like depression, feelings of helplessness, and even rage. The author of the article calls us “a nation on hold,” and criticizes businesses who doom their customers to never-ending hold times, picking apart the pieces of the call process that are most maddening to callers. An unpleasant call experience, it seems, doesn’t just mean an irritated customer now and then. It means a general dissatisfaction and, according to a study by YouGov, an immediate loss of business for your company. In fact, the study reveals that just one unpleasant contact center experience leads to a customer taking their business elsewhere, and 6 out of 10 customers have said so long to a company because its telephone customer service has been so bad. So, to help you avoid not only customer loss, but the wrath of a nation on hold, we will break down the major gripes with telephone customer service and show you how to avoid them.
Endless Hold Times
We’ll address the obvious first. Leaving your customers on hold for long periods of time is a no-no. Your customers’ time is valuable, and wasting it will guarantee a negative customer experience. To cut back on the time a customer is waiting, not only should you have an appropriately-sized staff to manage call volumes, but you should be implementing a sophisticated call routing solution that delivers callers to the correct department, rep, etc. right away so that they don’t need to waste any more time being transferred. Call routing ensures that callers get to the right person at the right time as efficiently as possible, and with the added benefit of a call distributor technology, you can be assured that the call will be delivered efficiently as well; ringing all agents simultaneously until the next available rep can take the call.
Annoying Automated Menus
Automated phone menus are not inherently annoying. They’re only annoying when they don’t serve their purpose: convenience. It’s true that many companies drop the ball in this regard: everything from annoying hold music to endlessly looping menus can ruin the caller experience in the blink of an eye. To make the IVR experience better for your customers, follow this advice:
Offer fewer choices. Don’t give the caller fifteen different options for where they can be directed. Keep it short, concise, and specific…and always give the caller the option to be directed to a real person right away.
Choose your hold music wisely. It seems kind of silly, but this is a big problem for a lot of businesses. It can be extremely annoying for callers to hear loud, jarring music when all they want to do is have their problem addressed. Choose music that is soothing and that plays at a reasonable volume.
Record your menu options carefully. It can take work to record and re-record, but it’s worth the extra time to ensure that your menu options are clear and easy to understand.
Choose high-quality voice-recognition tools. If your IVR has the ability for callers to reply verbally to make menu selections, make sure you are choosing a provider that can ensure high-quality listening. This is one of the ways that callers are driven crazy while waiting to reach a real person: IVR menus that endlessly ask them to repeat themselves. Avoid this at all costs.
Give the option for the caller to leave a message. If there are long hold times imminent, give callers the option to leave a message and have their call returned soon. This can be a simple way for customers with questions that aren’t urgent to be cleared from the queue, freeing up agents to address urgent questions.
Being Forced to Repeat Information
When a customer has a gripe about your company, the worst thing you can do is make them repeat it over and over. Every time they repeat their complaint, they’re going to get even more frustrated. This is why your phone system should be integrated with your CRM. That way, callers’ account information—including details from the initial call—is at the fingertips of every agent, displayed when the system recognized the customer’s phone number. The customer only needs to state their case one time, and then it becomes part of their record.
Businesses are focused on the bottom line. It makes sense. But when you’re looking at your budget, one area where you cannot afford to cut corners is customer service. Make room for it. After all, can you really afford to lose 6 out of 10 of your customers simply because you haven’t taken the time to implement a reliable means of customer service for your phone system? If you’re not sure where to begin, this free white paper can help. Beyond the Cloud: The Next Generation of Virtual Call Centers.