Question:
I realize that
sometimes my callers will need to wait a few seconds “for the next
available agent.” Although this is inevitable, I want to make sure they
only wait a minimal time. What are your standards for this?
Answer:
Several years ago, AT&T did a
study analyzing a caller’s propensity to hold. They discovered that on
average, callers hung-up after forty-five seconds. Further studies
found that if there was music-on-hold for callers to listen to, they
were more patient and actually judged the “hold” time to be shorter.
The latest development is the realization that by fine-tuning musical
styles and other on-hold programs can serve to further increase callers’
willingness to hold.
Having said all of this, our aim is to
answer as many calls as possible without the callers needing to be on
hold at all. When they do need to be placed on hold, our goal is to
keep hold time under this minimal forty-five second threshold. Although
some isolated callers will unfortunately be on hold for longer than
forty-five seconds, we are pleased to report that the majority of our
callers do not experience any hold time at all, and of those who do, the
majority are on hold for only a few seconds.
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