Call Center Management Featured Article
Don't Keep Them Waiting!
Nobody likes waiting in line. That’s why call queue management is so important to call centers. Without it, callers may be left on hold for unacceptable periods of time. And that can lead to frustrated customers, high call abandonment rates, lost business, and even lost revenue.
The good news is there are several steps call centers can take to implement or improve call queue management.
One is to offer callers the ability to get a call back later on. That way, callers can go on with their lives, and they’re not impatiently waiting on the line. This can go a long way in preventing customers from becoming frustrated during wait times.
It also can lower call abandonment. In fact, a recent Contact Babel survey of 200 call centers found virtual queuing results in a 32 percent lower average abandonment rate.
Of course, long wait times are often due to the fact that businesses don’t have the resources in place to handle demand at a particular time. One way to address that is by leveraging more sophisticated workforce management and optimization software so you more reliably forecast how many agents you’ll need at any time.
Call centers may also want to consider having some on-call personnel ready to roll in case demand is higher than expected. And cloud-based solutions can enable call centers to more easily plug in these individuals as needed and from wherever they may be.
Training can also go a long way toward helping agents resolve caller requests in a time-efficient manner. And that can, in turn, shorten average handling times and call queues. Among the approaches and tools that call center managers may want to consider for this purpose are call recording, role playing, and suggestion via whisper capabilities.
Edited by Mandi Nowitz