hold-times

Are You Prepared for Unpredicted Spikes in Call Volume? [Slideshare]

By Drew Wilkinson on October 24, 2019

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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 Accenture study, consumers’ top two complaints were:

Having to contact customer service multiple times; and
Being kept on hold for too long.

This consumer pet peeve is exacerbated by the fact that contact centers routinely face expected, and unexpected, spikes in call volume. Expected spikes can be a result of seasonality and promotional events, and unexpected spikes can stem from product recalls or natural disasters.

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20/20 Vision: The Best Advice for Contact Centers in 2020 – The Experts Weigh In

By Samantha Mehra on August 29, 2019

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Every year we ask: What can contact centers do to bolster their productivity, efficiency, and customer service offerings in the future? How can they survive and thrive in the face of so many variables? Well, it’s that time once again: We invited some of the top contact center experts from Ada, J Arnold and Associates, The Belding Group, Callzilla, Expivia, and other vibrant CX and CS avenues to offer us and you, our dear readership, their best pieces of advice for contact centers in this increasingly complex customer age.

As you read on, you’ll notice some pertinent themes arising for the coming year, some established, and some brand-spanking new: Leveraging AI and self-service in an increasingly competitive contact center space; optimizing training and education for employees; keeping the ‘human’ element of customer service in mind when incorporating new channels; being strategic with automation; and more. This year’s soundbites are rich with well-researched insights that a) act as a warning; and b) can help your contact center win.

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Four Metrics that your Utility Contact Center Needs to Track

By Drew Wilkinson on August 22, 2019

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Following widespread industry deregulation, the energy and utilities sector has become increasingly competitive. With more and more choices available to customers, providing quality customer service is more critical than ever. Customer loyalty is no longer guaranteed, with negative experiences driving ratepayers to the competition: 43% of utility customers who have a negative experience are still members after a year, compared to 74% of those who’ve had a positive experience. It’s a perfect storm of high consumer expectations, a host of new challenger brands, and online price comparison sites.

In this new era, customer service has become the battleground for organizations in the utilities sector. Those that win on this front are retaining customers and growing revenue. Those who lose are losing big. For example, in 2018, British Gas announced the loss of 340,000 customers and a 20% drop in profits.

Those looking to regain some ground through their customer service offering must first equip themselves with the data necessary to make informed decisions. What metrics should you measure, though? Here are the four key performance indicators (KPIs) your call center must be tracking.
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How to Prepare Your Call Center for Open Enrollment [Guide]

By Astrid Monge on June 27, 2019

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Open enrollment is one of the busiest and most stressful times of the year for healthcare insurance providers and consumers alike. In fact, many healthcare insurers start planning for open enrollment the minute the last season has come to a close. This is good thinking, as no company wants to find themselves getting ready only a few weeks before November 1st. Regardless, one of the main challenges during this time period is communication, with the cumulative call center volume in the federal marketplace totaling more than 14,569,000 in 2016 alone, according to the Centers for Medicare & Medical Services.

It makes sense: Customers are likely to be overwhelmed by the information they need to sift through in order to make serious decisions about their healthcare coverage. They are bound to have questions for call center agents. This, compounded by their desire to obtain the same level of customer service as they would from their favorite retail and tech brands, leads to massive spikes in call volume for most healthcare call centers. And while it might be tempting to forgo quality customer interactions and neglect the customer experience during this extremely stressful time of year, it’s of the utmost importance that call centers aim to please. After all, this is how customer relationships are made or broken.

How can your call center improve customer interactions during the most important time of year for consumers’ healthcare choices? That’s easy. In our latest tip sheet, you will learn the most important steps to take to get your call center into gear.

(Get the full tip sheet here!)

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Survey Shows Call-Back Deployments Have Doubled in Some Regions

By Shai Berger on May 14, 2019

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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 this one from Contact Babel last year. We just received an early copy of a new report, by Ryan Strategic Advisory, that surveyed 491 enterprise executives who had decision-making authority of their company’s contact centers. The data results show impressive growth.

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Battle of the Airlines, Round II: United Airlines and Going Beyond in Customer Service

By Drew Wilkinson on May 8, 2019

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This blog series explores two separate experiences related to the airline industry. In Round I, we looked at our COO’s experience with Air Canada. This week, Fonolo’s Digital Marketing Manager describes his interaction with United Airline’s pre-flight customer service. And the experience is quite different indeed.

While the airport and in-flight experience have United, Delta, and JetBlue offering guided meditations to help you chill out and destress, airlines have yet to find an antidote for their, politely put, inadequate customer service.

According to onholdwith.com, airlines are the second worst offenders when it comes to hold times. Customer service has become such an issue for the industry that frustrated lawmakers have given airline industry executives an ultimatum: Improve customer service on their own, or congress will impose tough new customer service laws for them.

So, how can airlines get their pre-flight customer service experience right? While United Airlines is certainly guilty of customer service transgressions (broken guitars and lost children to name a few), a recent United Airlines experience highlights the power of going a little further.

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Top 3 Call Center Complaints You Want to Avoid

By Jason Bigue on October 28, 2014

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Top 3 Call Center Complaints You Want to Avoid The modern call center has come a long way, as companies embrace technology to streamline the process of providing telephone-based customer service.

And yet, call centers are still plagued by the same, all-too-familiar problems: confusing IVRs, long hold times, and the need to repeatedly ask customers for information. No matter how much organizations try to improve customer service, a single one of these complaints can torpedo their interaction with customers.

Let’s have a look at the top 3 call center complaints you (and your callers) want to avoid: Continue reading →

3 Data-Driven Ways to Monitor Airline Customer Service

By Shai Berger on September 16, 2014

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Across the board, consumers continue to be dissatisfied with contact centers. Take for example, the recent study from CFI Group which notes a 10% drop in their “Satisfaction Index”. The top complaints remain the same: long hold times, “starting over” when calling an agent, repeating information between agents, annoying phone menus.

Airlines are particularly guilty in this regard. A report released in April shows that, over the past 5 years, total complaints about U.S. airlines have risen by more than 30%. These data points, and others like it, are able to show us who is succeeding, who is failing, and why. Continue reading →

Using Call-Backs to Cope with Spikey Call Volume

By Shai Berger on May 21, 2014

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Using Call-Backs to Cope with Spikey Call Volume The industry’s largest event, Call Center Week, is only a few weeks away and the excitement is definitely building. Fonolo will have a booth in the exhibit hall of course, and I’m really looking forward to meeting and chatting with folks from every aspect of the contact center universe.

I’m especially excited to be speaking at a session along with Chris Abel, Head of Call Center Operations at Bright Horizons. The title is The #1 Way to Smooth out Volume Spikes in your Call Center. If your call center ever struggles to deal with call volume, then you won’t want to miss this. Mark your calendars for June 12, at 2:05pm!

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The Good, The Bad and The Ugly in Customer Experience

By Jason Bigue on April 30, 2014

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Queue up the theme music and rolling tumbleweed! (We’ll have to make do without Clint Eastwood.) Through the use of onholdwith.com, let’s have a look at real-time tweets from callers who are currently stuck on hold and publically venting about it. I give you the good, the bad and the ugly in customer experience!