Do you really know what service level your customers will tolerate? Why knock yourself out answering 80 percent of calls in 20 seconds if they are just as happy with a wait of a minute and a half? Before you hire more people and pay overtime, determine what your customers really want.
With new technology, finding out is easier than ever before. In the old days, we needed to determine the exact date and time of the customer’s call and link it manually to his or her answers on a satisfaction survey. Now VoIP automatically makes the connection.
Managers in one of our client companies asked customers about their perceived wait time. They correlated the perception with the actual wait time, discovering that customers were happy with a 60-second wait if they had a quality experience once the phone was answered. In fact, a wait time of 60 seconds or less had no impact on overall telephone satisfaction. Despite longer wait times, some customers rated themselves as “extremely satisfied” due to the excellent agent behavior.
Is this true in your center? Find out if wait time is a key driver of your customer’s satisfaction.
