In the realm of customer service, every touchpoint matters. From the moment a customer reaches out to a brand, their experience can be influenced by a myriad of factors. While businesses often focus on the quality of their products, services, and interactions with customers, there’s one aspect that is frequently overlooked but can significantly impact the customer experience: the customer hold duration.
Picture this: You’ve encountered an issue with a product or service and decided to call customer support for assistance. You dial the number, navigate through the IVR and then… you’re put on hold. The duration of the hold can seem never ending, especially if it is on repeat. However, with a bit of creativity and strategic thinking, the customer hold duration can be transformed into a valuable tool for enhancing customer experience and engagement creating delightful customer experiences and enhanced agent interactions. With simple yet actionable IVR options during the hold duration can transform the way businesses engage with their customers.
According to a report by Gartner, leaders in 2024 are prioritizing Self-serve to encourage customers to resolve queries on their own. Businesses are heavily investing in Self-serve options, be it chatbot on website or WhatsApp bot, or messengers, brands are seeing a major impact.
Encouraging users to find resolutions to queries through chatbots or WhatsApp bots can be a gamechanger as it can resolve frequently asked questions to complex queries within seconds, enabling agents to focus on other complex issues.
Voice bots are taking over and becoming more humanized with everyday use. Deploying a voice bot can help in resolving a number of inbound queries providing immediate assistance and accurate responses. Voice bots have multilingual capability which can help in recognizing and responding in a number of languages, providing a native user experience. Calls can be initiated directly from a business number, through chabots and voice bots across various queries providing superior 24/7 support.
Enterprises today offer a call back option to the customers to assist them in the best possible way. This empowers customers to request assistance at their convenience eliminating the frustration of waiting on hold. While personalized assistance provided through call backs increases trust and credibility, it also helps businesses in planning their outbound routing calls in a better manner. Additionally, call back requests provide valuable insights for optimizing website performance and customer service processes.
Paying attention to every touchpoint in the customer journey, including hold music duration, to ensure a positive and seamless customer experience is important but often ignored. By deploying innovative customer service solutions, enterprises can enhance customer satisfaction and build long-lasting customer relationships.