Long customer wait times on the phone lead to customer frustration and an overall drop in how that brand or business is viewed – don’t let that happen to you.
Instead, use tried and true tactics to reduce your customer wait times (and their frustration) and be looked at as a company who values their customers’ time – and still knows how to be efficient!
Of course, the best wait time for your customers is no wait time – which is what Always Answer offers with our 24/7 live answering service and virtual receptionist, but there are other things you can do as well!
Here are five of Personalized Communication’s best tips for reducing the call wait time, or hold time, of your customers.
1. Find Your Bottlenecks (& Figure Out Why)
The best way to reduce your hold times on the phone is to find where the bottlenecks or backups are. Is there a certain day of the week that your wait time is the longest? Or maybe a certain time of day?
Do you have many voicemails or missed calls after working hours when your customer isn’t on hold – but simply can’t get ahold of you at all?
Knowing what your bottlenecks are can help you realize what you need, whether in answering services or simply in creating a new plan for calls. Maybe you just need one extra person on the phone lines for a couple of hours a day when your call volume is at its highest.
Regardless of your needs, you need to know them before you can find a solution.
2. Start from the Beginning
Go to the very start of your phone process. Do you have automated options? Are they clear? Or does a person immediately answer the phone and then transfer the call to the needed department or person?
Looking at your call process from the very beginning and finding ways to streamline it is incredibly important as cutting out steps and saving a minute here or there can fully turn around your hold length time and your customers’ frustration.
Don’t think that small tweaks will have a large impact – sometimes you just need to reevaluate the beginning of your process to find a better (and faster) way.
3. What Are Your Client’s Expectations?
Waiting for 15 minutes at the doctor’s office seems pretty normal, maybe even fast to some of us, but waiting 15 minutes on the phone for customer service is enough to make your customer hang up and swear off your company forever.
That is because there are different expectations for these two situations. Do some research to find out the expectations of your callers.
Is 30 seconds an alright hold time? What about 90 seconds? Maybe you are a large business and therefore your customers expect a slightly longer wait time. Whatever your specific industry and clients expect, make sure you are faster than that expectation!
Can’t quite seem to meet customer expectations? That’s a huge problem – if you’ve tried the other tips above and still can’t quite make the time limit your customers want, then consider tip #4 as your best option.
4. Optimize with a Live Answering Service
Speeding up your process can only go so far, and at some point, you might need some additional, professional help. That is why Always Answer is here.
We offer 24/7 live answering services so your customers will never have to wait longer than their expectation.
We also offer numerous features for different industries and needs, such as:
- Virtual Receptionists
- Appointment Scheduling & Confirmation
- Customer Support
- Event Registration
- Surveys
- Bilingual Agents
- Custom Greetings & Scripts
- Live Call Transfers
- Online Access
- And More!
Take all of the customer wait times out of the equation with a live answering service from Always Answer.
5. Live Chat, Email, or Text Options Are Booming!
If you’re getting more calls than web visitors (or if many of your calls could be solved by the customer viewing your website), then it might be time to look at what’s happening with your online business.
Having live chat features, email, or text options on your site can greatly reduce your call wait times (and calls, in general) as your customers will be able to easily find, or find out, what they need online.
Check out the Always Answer pages that all have a live chat feature in the bottom right corner. Even though we are a call center, we still like to encourage customers to chat online, as many prefer that – especially our younger clients.
Make sure you have the preferred communication avenues for each of your clients, not just the call-centric ones.
Always Answer is Ready for Your Call!
Never miss a call and never put your valuable customers on long and frustrating holds again.
Instead, contact Always Answer to start your 7-day, free trial of our services – and see how much time your business can save by not constantly having to stop to answer your phones.
We can’t wait to answer your call!
