High wait times when trying to reach a contact centre can bring out the worst in people. It's not dissimilar to standing in the non-moving queue of bureaucracy.
We've all been there. Seconds that feel like hours. Listening to annoying music. And then the irony of repeatedly listening to "your call is very important to us", and in the monotony of music, frustration and what feels like wasted time, thinking: "No, I do not think it could be that important, there must be something better out there".
Therefore, if there are better, quicker service providers out there - why should a customer not just jump ship? Also, should contact centres hire additional staff or even outsource to avoid this?
According to David Rastatter, senior product marketing manager at Ocular Technologies partner company, Aspect, hiring additional staff can lead to disproportions in productivity.
That is, when there are lulls in call volumes, front desk staff and agents can sit idle. Further administrative tasks may also not justify their recruitment and for many organisations there simply is not budget to employ more people.
When it comes to part-time contact centre agents, there is generally a huge learning curve involved, and customers not receiving immediate and correct information leads to a further dissatisfaction of the customer experience.
"Overflowing calls to an outsourcer during heavy peaks can be an effective solution if the workflow is simplistic and can be replicated and reproduced without errors," continues Rastatter.
"There are variable-outsourcing pricing structures. Most of these structures are based on the cost per call. Discounts are given to the client when there is an increase in the volume of calls being outsourced. The aforementioned may serve as a buffer for spike and seasonal call volumes, but may be a costly option that requires rework when the requests are too complex for the outsourcers."
He points out the ideal solution is to turn on a queue optimiser. This tool provides callers with the option to request a call back when there is a long line in the call queue. This means, you are not attached to your telephone or driving those around you bonkers by having your phone on speaker desperately waiting to be helped.
Importantly though, a queue optimiser has to be customised so that a certain level of service is already reached prior to the call back, ensuring that parts of the customer query have already been solved - this allows the agent to already have the information at hand to solve the customer's reason for the call.
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