How to Make the Best out of Inevitable Hold Times

The only time a customer should be put on hold is when it’s the last resort. This could be when there are more calls coming in than there are people to answer each one, or if additional help is needed to resolve an issue. The challenge is how to keep customers on the line when they are inevitably placed on hold.

Adding music and messages is a great way to make the most of a customers wait time. Here are some things to keep in mind when choosing the right audio for your company’s hold time.

Advantages:

• Music can have a relaxing effect on the customer.
• When customers are actively listening to something on their end, their perception of time seems shorter.
• Businesses can use on hold messages to share promotions or information about the company—possibly inspiring future sales.

Keep in Mind:

• Target audience. Choose music you feel a majority of your customers will enjoy.
• Ad length. Keep ads long enough to include important info, but short enough to keep customers listening.
• Loops. Be weary of excessive repetition, which can end up sounding like a broken record. You don’t want to annoy your customers.
• Cost. Some music is more expensive to purchase than others (some is even free). Though recording audio ads may be expensive, the ads will ideally pay for themselves in future sales.

A survey conducted by USA Business Telephone Today found that when on hold, people tend to respond better to music than to silence, and even better to music accompanied by informational messages. 52% of those in the survey hung up after more than one silent minute on hold, as compared to only 13% who had music to listen to, and only 2% that heard music and messages. Notably, the survey also found that the music and messages had a considerable effect on the caller’s perception of the amount of time spent on hold.  All of those faced with silence were convinced that their hold time was longer than it actually was, when less than a fifth of the callers who heard music and messages thought so.

Beyond some initial concerns a business may have about utilizing hold music and messaging, it seems clear that any company would do well to invest in using on hold music and messaging. In addition to better call retention rates, the messages heard on hold may lead to new or increased sales. Be as attentive as possible when on the phone with a customer, and when a hold is necessary, strive to make wait time a positive experience. Listen to customer feedback regarding your hold music and messaging, and take these suggestions to heart. As always, pay attention to what the customer wants above all and work to provide it.            

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Emphasize Customer Satisfaction Over Average Handle Time

Efficiency is a common buzz word in business, regarded by many as the most important metric for improving business practices. Unfortunately, what efficiency means and how to best measure the efficiency of your staff aren’t always easy to calculate. In customer service, it’s tempting to measure efficiency through factors that are easiest to quantify, such average handle time, but this approach misses the primary goal of customer service. Achieving customer satisfaction should be the number one focus of every customer service interaction. A faster handle time might look good on paper, but could come at the cost of customer experience.

In a business climate that emphasizes efficiency, a customer service department may be put in the difficult position of determining the best way to balance effective, considerate customer service with the expectations of reduced call times. There are methods to provide convincing data that the department is working towards greater efficiency, without sacrificing the more important goal of customer satisfaction.

If a call can be handled quickly and effectively it should be. Everyone’s time is valuable and the customer most likely is hoping for a fast resolution as well. That said, some issues necessarily take longer to resolve than others. For the sake of reporting, distinguish between simpler, standard customer tickets and the more complex customer inquiries that require more than a quick answer. This will give a more accurate sense of how long different types of issues take to resolve.

If performing an analysis of the customer support team that takes average handle time into consideration, make sure that customer ratings, feedback and the types of customer issues being handled are viewed alongside the handle times. The amount of time to solve a customer's problem is only one small piece of the larger picture and should never be treated as the most important factor in a customer service job.

If there’s still pressure to cut down on handle times after taking these other factors into account, work with the staff to develop methods for doing so that won’t impede the customer service process. Initiate a discussion in the next group meeting about some of the causes of longer call times. Evaluate as a group, which causes are valuable to the customer service experience and which could be handled better. Work together to create a document with the best responses to the most common issues to provide a reference for representatives to consult when needed.

Use the data from Mojo Helpdesk to identify those in the department that are best at resolving customer tickets quickly, while consistently receiving high ratings from customers. Encourage them to work with other team members to offer ideas for improving average handle time. If there’s a team member or two with especially long issue resolution times, have them shadow the top performing team members for a day to develop some ideas for resolving customer issues more quickly.

A blanket discouragement against longer handle times could result in worse customer service, so instead encourage team members to rethink ways to resolve customer issues that emphasize efficiency, while never losing sight of customer satisfaction as the top priority. If there’s pushback from outside the department, point out that good customer service can lead to positive reviews online and repeat business that far outweigh the time saved by pushing for shorter resolution times.

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