Picture it: A young American family booking a flight to a city in another country via Air Canada. Imagine them having to wait for more than 20 minutes before a customer service agent gets on the phone, only to then be transferred to another department.
Picture this, too: Imagine trying to get a flight changed at the last minute and waiting on hold for more than 50 minutes until you finally get through.
And, imagine this: You receive a gift card for Christmas and it doesn’t work, so you have to wait for customer service to get back to you. And in this scenario, it feels like that takes days.
These three situations have all been experienced by people just like you and I looking to connect with Air Canada customer service professionals to either book flights, change flight times, or simply access information about travel requirements and needs. According to onholdwith.com, a community-driven website aiming to end hold time for good, website Air Canada is among the most notorious hold time offenders. In addition, data from the website shows a real-time view of Twitter complaints for Canada and research shows more than 119 complaints in just the last week alone.
As Harry Truman famously stated, “Not all readers are leaders, but all leaders are readers.” Wise words. Although this is true, how do customer service leaders strategically read to a) learn how to turn themselves into optimal leaders; and b) transform their teams into the high-performing customer service engines they aspire to be?![Are You Prepared for Unpredicted Spikes in Call Volume [Webinar]](https://fonolo.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/05/Are-You-Prepared-for-Unpredicted-Spikes-in-Call-Volume-Webinar-450.jpg "Are You Prepared for Unpredicted Spikes in Call Volume [Webinar]")
While today’s tech-savvy consumers are using more non-voice channels to connect with businesses, the act of picking up the phone to quickly and verbally resolve an issue (complex or otherwise) isn’t going anywhere anytime soon. The problem with this? According to an ![How to Prepare your Call Center for Cyber Monday and Black Friday [Guide]](https://fonolo.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/06/Field-Guide-Retail-Cyber-Monday-Black-Friday-Cover.png "How to Prepare your Call Center for Cyber Monday and Black Friday [Guide]")
Big question: How should text-based communication work alongside voice for customer service? In the dark ages, the only answer to this was email, in its own silo, and a call center, in its own silo. Then real-time chat came along. And then messaging, powered by massive platforms like Facebook and WhatsApp, made an appearance. Meanwhile, driving in its own lane, is good ‘ol SMS.
Now that Game of Thrones has ended, you’re probably thinking, “What should I do with all of the extra time I have now?” Allow me to suggest something: It’s a great time to catch up on industry reading. There’s a large (metaphorical) stack of reports to go through here at Fonolo HQ, so let’s dive in!
More and more call centers are offering a call-back option as an alternative to putting customers on hold. At Fonolo, we see this trend through the increased demand of our own call-back solution. We also see it in survey results such as 
There are some amazing benefits to living in Canada (socialized health care, an abundance of maple syrup, and plenty of expressions for foreigners to mock, eh?). However, one clear downside is a lack of competition in the airline industry (that, and the proximity to polar bears).
ICMI gives us the opportunity to showcase the power of our cloud-based call-back solution in resolving recurring problems for the contact center, like caller abandonment, volume spikes, and cost-per-call,” says Shai Berger, CEO, Fonolo. “ICMI has historically been a transformative experience for Fonolo. We look forward to networking with contact center professionals and sharing our powerful solution with them.
