How often do you call a number knowing that you’re in for the long haul? Broadband and utility providers are the worst at answering calls, in fact they will do anything not to pick up the phone. A BBC Watchdog test proved that a 30 minute wait is standard. While you’re on hold you will hear messages referring you to their website. Plus of course the insincere “your call is important to us” message that we all hate. But as we know, if they actually value your call, then they would answer it.
We have become used to IVRs (Interactive voice response) systems. IVR was invented all the way back in the 1970s. But it really started to become the norm from 2000. So it’s been around for a long time. We expect to hear a recorded message at the start of the call. The “press option 1 for this and press option 2 for that” is familiar to us now. Most of us know that if ‘Sales’ is one option and ‘Customer services’ is another option, then you press the option for Sales because someone is much more likely to answer than anyone in Customer service. Better still, if there is an option to press for “if you’re thinking of leaving us” then go for that one!
There are also various cheats to beat the system. Try these – keep pressing the hash key or star key or o, not 0, but o. If the system tells you that you’re in queue position 1, it may well tell everyone they’re in queue position 1. It’s all part of the plan to keep you on hold for as long as possible. You’ll listen to torturous music while they try to sell you other services and of course tell you “your call is important to us”.
Over the years people have become weary of all of this, and frankly customers deserve better. It follows that if a call centre receives too many calls, then those calls have to go somewhere. So there are 2 options – leave the callers to die in the queue, or send those overflow calls to another call centre. That’s where Professional Call Minders can help.
The team manage response calls for many different types of businesses to make sure that callers feel valued. Callers are guided through various processes to resolve front line issues. This is so much more positive than callers waiting in queues. It works brilliantly and takes the strain off the call centre and means that true customer service is in action. So when a call centre employs us to manage overflow calls and says “your call is important to us” they actually mean it.
