Almost everyone is intimately familiar with the irritation of a repetitive tune and the empty phrase “your call is important to us.”
The average person spends 43 days of their life on hold. This greatly impacts their view of customer service as a whole, and improving the customer experience is a great way to show you care.
Here, we’ll discuss:
- How responsive customer service works
- Why good telephonic customer support matter
- How people perceive customer interaction strategies
- How quality customer service benefits businesses
Read on to learn some ways that nurturing a shorter call wait time matters.
Responsive Customer Service: The Basics
While screaming “REPRESENTATIVE” into a receiver that’s playing an endless stream of cheerful music may sound cathartic, it’s not as fun as it sounds.
The whistling tune sounds mocking rather than calming. The obvious lie of a repeated we value your call makes people understandably want to rip their hair out. Combine that with the complaint or concern that they’re calling about, and long call wait periods will understandably make customers hate you.
Luckily, businesses don’t need to make customers feel like they’re laughing at their annoyance. With responsive customer service, you can show your clientele that you actually value their call.
“Responsive customer service” encompasses tenents like:
- Quick responses to phone calls
- Short hold times (if any)
- Accurately addressing the concerns that people phone in
- Acknowledging and validating the specific frustrations that the caller is having
- Setting expectations for what the customer can expect (e.g. when they’ll get a refund deposited in their bank account)
- Automation tools to connect callers with the right representatives
- Listening to feedback carefully and incorporating it into future business endeavors
When you do this, customers are more likely to stay collected, communicate clearly, and retain their sanity.
Customers’ Preferences for Human Interaction
All responsive customer service is built on human interaction.
2021 Forbes surveys found that 86% of customers prefer to interact with a human agent when calling a business. 71% are even less likely to use a brand that makes it hard to reach a person.
There are several reasons for this, including:
- Longer call wait times with automated systems
- AI’s inability to communicate complex human ideas
- A lack of emotional responsiveness from bots
- Difficulty addressing issues because of this lack of understanding
- A narrow range of possibilities for resolving issues (since automated bots are pre-programmed to do a set range of things)
- The high likelihood that the caller will waste even more time on hold if the bot does decide that they need help from a representative
- An inability to discuss complex topics and solve complex issues without human help
Empathetic and understanding human care solves these problems in a snap. This ensures that customers won’t snap emotionally.
Experts at Centris Telematics have developed a multifaceted solution to the current crisis of bad customer care. These solutions:
- Combat downtime
- Improve support quality
- Eliminate the need for training due to using pre-trained outsourced customer service representatives
- Help you plan more efficiently for better care
Plus, the solutions are never one-size-fits-all. You won’t need to worry about your customers getting generic and impersonal assistance. Your customers’ experiences will be specific to your business, and they’ll associate you with great customer satisfaction techniques.
Call Wait Times and Respect
We value your call. Your call is important to us. We want to save you time.
There are almost always blatant lies.
One reason that being on hold is so annoying for customers is that they see it as a sign of disrespect. 59% of them think that companies have lost touch with the human element of customer service.
50% of callers think that long hold times are a sign that you don’t value their time. Making them sit there and wait:
- Wastes time that they could use to do other things
- Shows them that your business can’t make them a priority
- Disrespects their concerns when they already perceive your business as having messed up
If your company actually cares about customers, you’ll use human-based responsive customer interaction strategies.
When you do this, you give them the agent interaction that they called for in the first place. This gives them what they want and enables them to understand that your care isn’t an empty reassurance.
Providing responsive discussions also:
- Shows people that you care for their time
- Ensures that customers see that you value their immediate needs
- Makes communication with your business convenient and efficient
A Better Bottom Line
Responsive customer service has a huge impact on consumers. It also has several benefits for businesses as a direct result of customer satisfaction.
When wait times hit the two-minute mark, customers tend to start getting antsy and annoyed. McKinsey found that for every minute of hold music after that, their satisfaction rates dropped by 15%.
This means that six minutes on hold make the customer satisfaction level 0%, and seven minutes means that they’re ready to scream into the receiver.
They remember this horrible experience forever, and it should come as no surprise that such a bad time will get them to write a business off immediately.
On the flip side, American Express found that responsive customer service led by human beings leads to 86% of customers reporting increased brand loyalty. This is especially true when hold times are minimized.
By offering human customer support, your business improves:
- Customer satisfaction
- Brand loyalty
- Online clickthrough rates from those looking for future services
- Recommendations from loyal customers to new consumers
- Overall profits
Expanding your solution is a great way to increase profits. More representatives mean less waiting!
Throw Hold Music Out the Window
Now that you know how low call wait times benefit both people and businesses, it’s time to upgrade your customer service methods.
Centris is committed to providing you with unmatched levels of customer care. We interact one-on-one with your clients and address concerns directly. The lack of wait times ensures that you stand out and retain your best customers.
Connect with our team to schedule a demo of our services ASAP!
