Today’s demanding consumers have high expectations when it comes to the call center experience. A surefire way to fall out of favor with a customer is to leave them on hold for more than a few minutes. (For proof, head over to onholdwith.com and check out the feed of complaint-tweets.)
The solution to hold-time is to offer a call-back as an alternative. Virtual queuing means that each caller’s place in line is held and the caller is free to enjoy their day while waiting. Call-backs can also be offered on a scheduled basis, where callers can choose a time slot in the future. (We covered the surprising power of scheduled call-backs in this post.)
At Fonolo, we’ve been preaching about the benefits of call-backs for many years, and survey data shows that the industry is responding as the percentage of call centers offering this option continues to grow. Our goal is to see every call center offer call-backs, so that no one has to wait on hold ever again.
One industry report that we always anticipate at this time of year is the annual “Contact Center Decision Maker’s Guide” from ContactBabel. The 9th edition of the report weighs in at a massive 300-pages with tables and graphs examining every aspect of the contact center world. Topics include WFM, headsets, agent recruiting, voice biometrics, and more.
For decades, the phone call was the dominant choice for getting customer service from a company (at least, if you couldn’t walk in their door). The emergence of email, and then the web, started to change the role of the phone call. That change accelerated dramatically in recent years as new channels appeared in rapid succession: Twitter, Facebook, online chat, mobile apps, SMS.
