Some companies operate around the clock, but even if yours doesn't your customers will have questions outside regular business hours. Normally, they just hold their questions and wait until you open before calling in. Then, once you open for business and your customers finally call in, it's no surprise they're eager to reach you right away.
Do your customers end up on hold?
Even businesses that answer their phones quickly run the risk of being bottle necked by high call volumes or heavy workloads at busy times. And in some cases, the customers who have been waiting for your business to open, and waiting to speak to you directly, get stuck on hold. Businesses lose customers every day by leaving them on hold for too long.
How long are your customers willing to wait?
Data collected by dialogtech shows the average time a caller waits on hold is 56 seconds. It's much longer for small businesses, who have the longest hold times at about 1 minute and 47 seconds on average. This is often due to their stretched resources. Even though customers probably understand why they're on hold longer with a small company, and they're willing to wait, holding on the phone for too long does effect customer satisfaction.
Anytime you wonder how customers are feeling when they're stuck on hold for extended periods, go read the live tweets curated in real time at #OnHoldWith.
Medium businesses have much shorter wait times: about 39 seconds on average. Callers to large and extra-large businesses hold for an average of 45 and 52 seconds respectively. Even when your customers are willing to wait on the line, dialogtech's analysis shows that 15% of them will hang up after about 40 seconds of holding.
Being in operation since 1965 has allowed Telelink to collect 55 years of call volume data and to predict and prepare for peak call times accordingly. Telelink answers 80% of calls within 30 seconds. And that's our service level agreement with our customers.
So Should You Offer Quick Solutions to Serve More Customers Faster?
Call answering agents are much more than sources of information these days. They're front-line brand representatives. The best customer service agents understand their role as brand ambassadors. They make sure they're prepared to handle a wide range of questions and calls. Today's customer service agents go far beyond simply following a script over the phone.
The best agents understand their role as advocates. They're ready, willing and able to work with customers to resolve issues that can't always be fixed quickly and easily. So sometimes you can't simply pick up the phone and offer those quick solutions that would allow you to serve more customers faster on your main line at work.
Sometimes you just need a greater capacity to answer more calls at peak times. And providing a higher quality customer experience by partnering with a team like Telelink becomes a competitive differentiator for your business! We're here when you need us.