If you have something to say about the overall customer experience your company provides or, more specifically, the caller experience, take a look at the video above.
See if you can sit through all three minutes and not feel frustrated.
Are you able to listen and not hear the wasted opportunity?
The video features in-queue messaging that bluntly interrupts the music and consists of the same four sentences repeated every 30 seconds:
“Thanks for waiting. Your call is important to us. Please continue to hold for the next available customer care specialist. We appreciate your patience and understanding.”
I was in queue with the company for about ten minutes, so I heard that message 20 times.
Anyone on hold or in queue knows what’s happening. They don’t need to be reminded that they’re “waiting” and that they should “continue to hold” even once, let alone 20 times.
“Your call is important to us” has long been the set-up to a very tired joke. The punchline: “If my call’s so important to you, pick up the damn phone!”
And when you tell your callers that you “appreciate their patience and understanding,” you’re basically apologizing – in this case, over and over again.
This lazy approach provides NOTHING to callers in exchange for their time. No good information. No valuable insight. No offers. No reason to engage further with the brand. No incentive to stay on the line. And the repetition of the message only accentuates the caller’s perceived wait.
Are you inflicting this type of needless pain on your valuable callers?
If so, it might be leading to increased caller abandonment, lost business, even brand damage. And it can be especially harmful if you have long average hold or queue times.
Don’t lose customers and revenue to a problem that’s so easily fixed. Let’s talk soon about improving your caller experience.