It can be safely said that we have entered an age where almost everyone we know is in a perennial state of haste. Haste to get work done, haste to get problems sorted, and haste to get the most from life. With such an approach, it has become mandatory to provide exceptional customer service in the shortest span of time possible.
To be true, Millennials absolutely loathe waiting in queues to get their concerns addressed, and this means putting customers on hold is a bad, bad idea in contemporary times. This can be substantiated with the fact that many recent surveys state almost 3/4th of customers prefer a call back rather than being on hold. Moreover, it has been proven to lower abandon rates considerably by over 30%. Now, who in the right mind won’t love these figures!
Why Call back is the Superior Path?
When 3/4th of customers prefer this feature, you must understand that it speaks volumes about the shift in customer preferences. They have trying to communicate to brands that they will no longer tolerate putting calls on hold. For the uninitiated, this would be rather a precarious situation. However, people of the contact center industry can derive relief from the fact that they can rely on call back to improve customer experience.
Once you opt for calling back your customers, you will be in a position to channel call volumes and reduce spikes significantly. This will mean greater productivity, increase in agent efficiency and better allocation of resources. As a result, you will be handle call traffic in a much better manner.
When customers are made to hold, they often tend of forget about their problem and become irate instead as they are made to wait. Therefore, once they get through to an agent, they are more likely to complain about the hold time and this result in lengthening the call. Calling them back will save you from complaints and most importantly, will lead to lower call handling time.
Long holding time necessarily means higher toll charges. However, calling back eliminates this possibility as customers will not have to spend time waiting in queue. This way, you can save a significant amount of telecom cost.
Perhaps the most important aspect of calling back is agents never lose a lead even when they are pre-occupied and couldn’t answer the call. Once customers choose call back service, their information gets recorded and agents can contact the lead anytime.
The Road Ahead
Traditionally, calling back customers totally depended on call volumes of contact centers, agent activity and a host of other factors. Though, customers were told that they would surely receive a call within an hour. However, more and more brands are adopting an Omnichannel approach as the world is moving towards online and mobile as dominant mediums for customer interactions.
This has led companies to integrate this feature inside apps and online websites. Customers can now choose to drop out of call and schedule a call back from reps using the ‘Call Me Back’ feature. At the same time, the system provides a dynamic Estimated Wait Time by calculating the number of persons in queue, and how much time will it take for calling back.
This virtual queue will help customers save time, avoid the rather infamous music while being on the hold, and the added frustration that accompanies it.
What have been your experiences on the subject? Please share your thoughts in the comments below.
