VHT to Give Customers Detailed Agent Availability Directly in Search Engine Results

Search engines play a vital role in customer service operations, as this is by far the most popular way for consumers to find contact information for an organization and initiate communication. Afte rall, voice is still the preferred channel, so they are usually searching for a phone number .

Every call center is however subject to several factors that affect how quickly and effectively a representative will be able to respond to a call at any given time, such as the number of employees on hand, the technology that facility has implemented and the amount of incoming call traffic.

Customer engagement solutions provider Virtual Hold Technology (VHT) just secured a patent for a new technology that will enhance search engine results to reflect just this sort of information and therefore give customers a clearer picture of what their experience is about to be like.

 Instead of just providing the call center’s phone number, search results for organizations that implement VHT’s technology will include contact information for other channels such as live chat and email, current wait times for the call center and insight into agent availability. Organizations also have an interactive option in which a button can be embedded directly into these results that initiates a call or sends a request to the call center for a callback (the latter option is growing in popularity across the board as a preferable alternative to long waiting times).

“We know that most consumers use search to determine the best way to reach customer support,” commented Wes Hayden, CEO of VHT. “This technology innovates on what search is meant to do — drive an efficient, friendly relationship with a brand. Now search results will be able to include detailed information pulled from real-time data that exists within the contact center platform.”

This new VHT technology will presumably integrate seamlessly with a range of call center automation and queuing solutions, in addition to those offered by the company itself, to further augment the usefulness of this real-time data. On the search engine side of things, this technology furthers the progression of search from a simple call-and-response tool to an interactive experience based on intelligent capabilities that provides customers with the most helpful results possible. Stay tuned for an official branding of VHT’s newly-patented technology in the near future.