Answering and Wait Times: Keep Them Short
Customers have been trained to expect fast services. In order to maintain quality customer service, you have to have quick-response system. Technology can give you the speed that you need to get an edge over the competition. Instant chat and answering services will show your customers that you care about their business. Making it easy for your customers to reach your business is essential to maintaining client satisfaction.
Complaints
If a customer is upset about your products or services, and they cannot get ahold of anyone in your company, it will only upset them more. Increasing your answering service efforts ensures that these customers can find someone to talk to when they have an issue so you and your staff can work toward finding a solution.
On Hold
No one likes to wait on hold, but there are times when a business has more callers than staff to handle those calls. You could over-staff but, you will end up having higher employee costs and lower productivity. You could let the callers wait, but eventually callers will hang up and find another company to do business with. Neither of those options would be good for the bottom line. Here are two solutions you could try:
- Use a staffing calculator (Erlang-C is commonly used). This will help you calculate the average number of employees needed to keep your average hold time to a minimum. Every customer and business has a different tolerance for hold time, but most studies show that customers are willing to wait for about 18 seconds. You will need your average call time (in seconds), average calls you handle per hour, and what you would like your average hold time (in seconds) to be. You can experiment with different scenarios with your business.
- Hire an Answering service for overflow and ask your telephone provider to install “no answer” call forwarding. This will allow you to maintain the most efficient staffing levels, but when you have un-expected influx in call volume your callers will not have to wait for an answer.
Answering Every Call
Customers rarely take the time to express their frustrations, they just go elsewhere. For example, there is a perception that patients will put up with bad customer service from a medical center as long they get to see a doctor. This is not true in today’s competitive environment. Answering the phone promptly, professionally, and providing a one call resolution may be the only chance businesses have to obtain a new patient.
If your customers can always get through to someone at your company, it gives them a better impression of your business. Whether they are calling with a complaint or a question, the ability to talk to a real person helps them gain confidence in your business and your customer service efforts. This might inspire them to help tell other people about your impressive customer relations, which could earn you some new business. No matter the outcome, quick answering and friendly, patient service can only benefit your business.