Running a call center outsourcer, it gives me a bit of insight into the whole hold time issue. Some say that they will only hold for 2 minutes and then they hang up. That is pretty much true. For one of my largest clients, which does Wi-Fi hotspotting across the US and at many of the airports in the country (yes I know Wi-Fi Support and Airline Res are completely different, but work with me here)...it is amazing how impatient people can be.
We look at an average of around 20% of all inbound calls to be dropped. This has been the norm over the last few months for this client. When break down those calls...we do it in a few categories: Under 1min 30 sec, 1:30 to 3:00min; 3 to 4:30 min; 4:30 to 6 and then over 6. The two biggest categories tend to be the first (under 1:30) and the last over 6 minutes. Of the dropped calls, we see around 50% of those drop in the first minute and a half. These are simply people that are impatient and expect to get right in to someone with no wait time. We are then looking at 20-30% of those dropped to happen after the 6 minute mark.
So what? The key figure to look at is pretty much anything for 4 minutes and definitely over 6 minutes. If you are not running a queue as a call center, you aren't making money. However, you don't want to run queue times that are so long that people end up waiting 5...10...15...25 minutes. So for a call center operation, it is hard to find a happy medium of a small queue so people aren't waiting forever and that your agents aren't sitting there bored out of their mind on Pogo. Going back to the queue time limits...anyone who hangs up under that 4 minute mark are typically people that want things right here and right now and have a completely unrealistic understanding of call centers. I'm happy to say our average queue time is right around 1 minute for the current measurement period - but yes there are times when you can get a very long queue time (15 minutes or more)...peaks happen for no reason. You just have to roll with it.
Hearing of extremely long hold times when getting a hold of Res is nothing but a failure of the people U has running their reservations call centers. What is probably even more concerning is the amount of money being lost for those long queue times and dropped calls. Remember, the company still has to pay their LD carrier for that inbound call that is sitting on hold.
If such poor performance continues, U really needs to look at revisiting the management of the call centers or a whole new solution all together. The problem is, if you are going the outsourcing route...learn from the mistakes of others. Stay away from off shore and international call centers. Also try to stick with companies that have results and not so much the glitz and glam of multi-million dollar call centers. It all comes down to a productive, relaxed, and even fun environment for all the employees to really make it work. Also effective scheduling, call routing, and training to help bring those queue times down and make sure more calls are getting answered and the customer being served.
Unfortunately, only a slim minority of call center outfits share the same vision as I. I mean...you find another company where the management has the ability to jump on the phones at a moments notice to help out when queues get a little bit too big. Naturually in a unionized environment that isn't accepted...but then that is when it comes down to an effective working environment where there aren't any politics and everyone is on the same playing field when it comes to working the floor.
