Wait times in the Contact Centre

I have recently had to go through the process of contacting a service provider and as I am sure many of you will agree, these calls can often be unpredictable and time consuming.

However, I bit the bullet, picked up the phone, dialled the number and successfully managed to navigate my way through the automated options system only to be met with “currently all our advisers are busy.” My heart sank, what followed felt like hours of terrible hold music and intermittent updates telling me that “your call is important to us” and “an adviser will be available shortly.” In reality the wait was probably only a couple of minutes long.  

Needless to say by the time I was connected to an adviser my experience had already been seriously damaged; all I wanted was to have my query resolved as quickly as possible and to get off the phone. 
  
This is a great example of the type of experience that Fizzback clients wish to monitor and improve on for future calls.There are a number of ways in which we help our clients but I am going to pick two which are the most important to me:

Firstly, Fizzback’s use of a sophisticated Natural Language Processing (NLP) technique to interpret feedback, determining the nature, topics and sentiment expressed by the customers allows for drivers of dissatisfaction such as wait times and queue times to be categorised and monitored over time.

Secondly, Fizzback has experience working with clients on linking-up operational metric data such as call volumes, service levels, average time to answer calls and shift patterns in order to identify how significant changes in these can impact overall satisfaction scores over time.

What we know: Operations often set internal SLA’s e.g. 90/20 or 80/20. In this example Fizzback is able to prove that essentially customers do not care about the internally set SLA, they care about getting their call answered. When service levels drop below what the customer deems to be acceptable, in this case 20 seconds, then it has a significant impact on the customer experience. Fizzback clients want to understand the balance between what customers find acceptable and what can be delivered within their financial budget.

In order to maximise benefits contact centres need to build a complete picture of all the potential impactors to their customer satisfaction scores and monitor them over time. This involves not just looking at other operational metrics but also incorporating and monitoring the impact  of  wider business initiatives such as new product launches, high visibility marketing campaigns and technical or service failures all of which can drive unexpected call volumes, increase wait times and negatively impact customer perceptions.

As for me?  Although my enquiry was dealt with effectively and to my satisfaction the initial wait had left me feeling as if I had a negative experience.

Liz Turrell

For more info on Fizzback visit www.fizzback.com