A recent poll revealed that a significant majority (60%) of respondents cited long hold times as the main cause of dissatisfaction with customer service departments. This trend also extends to sales departments, where failure to answer calls within a minute can result in losing over 60% of potential sales or new customers.
Call queue software allows for the efficient distribution of calls among available team members by setting thresholds for wait time and queue size. It ensures that calls are answered promptly and efficiently. It is important to implement best practices for call queue management to make the most of this software.
This guide will provide 12 tips for effectively managing call queues to improve customer satisfaction, increase conversions, and capture more incoming calls. But before diving into these strategies, let’s first establish a foundation of knowledge on the topic.
What Is Call Queue Management?
A call queue is a system that manages the flow of incoming calls, allowing callers to wait in a virtual line until an agent is available to speak with them. It ensures that calls are handled efficiently, reducing wait times and improving the customer experience.
Call queue management software uses a set of rules to route calls to the appropriate department or agent based on the caller’s needs and the organization’s requirements.
Effective call queue management can lead to better call flow, shorter wait times, and improved customer satisfaction.
However, it’s important to note that keeping callers on hold for too long can have a negative impact on sales and customer satisfaction. Research shows that sales teams will lose 60% of calls if they don’t answer the phone within a minute and another 15% if the wait time exceeds two minutes.
Furthermore, 13% of people are unwilling to wait on hold. Organizations should aim for a hold time of 20 seconds or less, with a maximum of 45 seconds. Anything above that can negatively affect sales and customer satisfaction.
What Are The Best Practices For Call Queue Management?
While it would be ideal to answer all calls immediately, it may not always be possible. However, some measures can be taken to ensure customers have a positive experience even when the lines are busy.
Make Scheduling Rules
When a call comes in, it’s important to consider the time and day of the week and have the appropriate staff available. One way to achieve this is to have your call system set different greetings or routing rules based on the time of day or day of the week.
For example, different greetings or agents can be available during business hours and weekdays versus weekends, evenings, and holidays. Aligning the customer experience with the time of day can set a positive tone for the interaction.
Provide Informative Announcements Or Greetings
Having a friendly and professional greeting that identifies your business and sets a positive tone for the call is important. One way to achieve this is to personalize the greeting by wishing the caller a good morning, afternoon, or evening.
For example, “Good morning, you have reached Full Duplex, and we look forward to speaking with you. To talk to our sales agent, please press 1.”
Additionally, the call queue greeting can be used to provide callers with basic information or common inquiries, which may help to answer their questions or concerns without the need to speak with a team member. It could include your business hours, address, or other commonly requested information.
Implement Routing Options
Regarding calling queue management, you have different options for routing calls based on your business needs. For example, you can create rules that route inquiries to specific departments or use a skills-based system that routes more advanced calls to senior employees. Additionally, you could route calls based on different time zones if your business is global.
Another routing method is round robin, where the system attempts each agent one at a time until it finds someone available to speak with the caller. Another option is Ring All, where several (or all) phones ring at once, with the first person who reaches the phone getting the call.
The important thing to remember is that there are many ways to make your call queue management system more efficient. And call centre software is constantly updating with new capabilities and strategies to help you improve the customer experience.
Add Language Preferences
In today’s diverse society, it’s important to consider that not all of your callers may speak the same language. To address this, you can create language-specific queues for multilingual staff, connecting callers to an agent who speaks their language rather than encountering a frustrating language barrier.
It can help to improve the customer experience and make your call centre more accessible to a wider range of people.
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Update Callers On Queue Option
When calling a customer service or sales department, it can be frustrating not knowing how many other people are on the line or how long you’ll be on hold. A queue position announcement can alleviate this by providing callers with information on their position.
It can be especially useful for those who have been on hold for a while and are losing patience. Knowing they are next in line can help keep them on the line and improve their experience with your company.
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Conclusion
Call queue management is a system that helps manage incoming calls’ flow by directing them to the appropriate agent or department. Organizations can reduce wait times, improve the customer experience, and increase conversions and incoming calls by implementing effective call queue management strategies.
Some of the key best practices for call queue management include creating scheduling rules based on the time of day and day of the week, providing informative announcements and greetings, implementing routing options such as skills-based routing and round robin, accommodating language preferences for multilingual callers, and providing callers with information on their position in the queue.
