What is on-hold time?
On-hold time is the amount of time a caller spends in an agent-initiated hold status. This happens when agents need to have a discussion regarding a customer’s query or have to search for a solution.
How is on-hold time measured?
On-hold time is reported via average on-hold time, which the average length of time agents put callers on hold during a customer call.
What are some ways to reduce average on-hold time?
- Optimize call routing: An ideal call routing strategy ensures that specific customer problems are routed to agents best qualified to solve them. By bucketing and routing queries, the method ensures minimum on-hold time is spent in resolution.
- Efficient CRM software: Another issue is that agents spend time looking up for information. If Customer Relationship Management (CRM) softwares are efficient and well organized, it can give agents a full overview of customer details for faster query resolution.
- Intelligent IVR: While call routing is one method, an intelligent IVR also helps customers resolve common issues without ever reaching an agent. Prompts like reward points availability and account balance can be offered to the customer automatically.
- Omnichannel tools: Omnichannel tools allow agents to switch between interactions and channels seamlessly without interrupting or ending customer conversations, thus leading to faster resolutions.
- Updated internal knowledge base (IKB): Creating a database of robust knowledge that makes spreadsheets, datasheets, and shortcuts easily accessible to agents ensures faster customer response.
On-hold time is an incredibly important metric that directly affects customer satisfaction. Providing a support system to an agent by investing in newer technologies, protocols, knowledge databases and more can drastically improve an agents’ on-hold time.
