If there’s something everyone can agree on, it’s that having to call customer service is usually a drag. Things like long menu trees, improper routing and IVRs that simply don’t understand commands really take any pleasure out of making that dreaded call. Luckily, there are options today – like call back— that let a caller hold their place in line and only be connected when an agent is ready to talk.
This is pretty significant once you consider the amount of time people are spending on hold. It adds up, Alain Mowad, director of product management at Virtual Hold Technology, recently told an audience of Webinar attendees learning more about the company’s VHT cloud offering.
What we never consider is the overall impact of being on hold from a lifetime perspective. Mowad noted that studies show the average amount of time a person will be on hold is a total of 43 days. That’s a lot of time you’ll never get back.
Mowad also noted that it’s pretty telling when 65 percent of consumers would rather pay for a better customer experience and 89 percent have even stopped doing business with a company after having experienced poor customer service.
To truly keep customers happy takes a lot of work. What customers want more than anything is better service.
Mowad continued that customers are four times more likely to buy from a competitor when the problem is service related versus product related. And people are willing to pay more if they are getting better customer care.
Over time we’ve adopted new tools to try to help make the experience easier for customers—getting people to the right agent quicker, self service as a way to help ease the burden, etc. But at the end of the day, we’re still stuck with the fact that people have to wait to talk to an agent.
Add to this reality that expectations from the younger generation have changed too, and it’s the perfect storm.
Millennials come from an on demand economy with instant access to anything.
How can call centers meet their needs and be better prepared for things like holidays, weather and power outages that can all impact call center operations?
That was the focus of a recent Webinar sponsored by Virtual Hold Technology titled, “Delivering Better Experiences with VHT Cloud .”
VHT has the answer. A way to better handle traffic and reduce the main culprit of customer dissatisfaction – hold times.
For the call center, it’s in the cloud, you can get up and running quickly and get instant updates without capital investment upfront. And there is also security and scalability offered along with reporting to keep mangers aware of how the call center environment is changing with the addition of call back.
Check out the recorded version of the Webinar HERE to hear more.
