Why Putting a Customer on Hold is Never Good for Business

Running a successful customer contact center means knowing what your customers are looking for when it comes to call-in support. After all, if you don’t know what your customers are looking for how can expect to give them what they want?

The most important thing that consumers expect when they call for help is that their problem is resolved in a timely manner. For that reason, it is of the utmost importance that contact centers solve whatever issue a customer may have quickly. This means customers should never have to wait on hold for five, ten, fifteen or however any minutes before they’re connected to someone who can actually address and solve their problem.

If at all possible, a customer’s issue should be resolved by the first person that they speak with rather. Consumers cite being transferred from agent to agent as one of their biggest issues with contact centers. Customers, especially American customers, hate having to wait for help. In general, the longest a customer will usually wait before hanging up is ten minutes. Putting customers on hold for longer than this amount of time consistently is a recipe for disaster. Nevertheless, having customers wait for any amount of time at all may prove to dampen their experience.

Less than half of surveyed American customers said they would want to be on hold for even one minute.Of course, there are times when a customer must be put on hold or transferred to another agent in order to remedy their problem. In light of this fact, there are a few ways to help alleviate a customer’s frustration in such cases.

One temporary remedy would be to put on music when customers are on hold. Studies indicate that customers are far more likely to wait with music in the background. However, making being on hold more tolerable is not a reliable alternative to reducing the time customers send on hold. The best way to do this would be to increase the number of people on staff during times where a large number of calls come in, for example, after work.

Depending on the size of the business or the number of staff available to deal with incoming calls, often the best option for businesses is to outsource call center services. Doing so will ensure that individuals do not languish on hold and, as a result, remain loyal customers.