Therefore, it is extremely crucial to keep track of such key metrics regularly and know how to calculate them properly, what are the ways to improve them and how do they influence customer satisfaction.
One such metric is call center hold time, or call center average hold time if you name it correctly. It measures such problematic aspects of handling customer calls as putting customers on hold, which is one of the most frustrating parts of customer service in the call center industry. Thus, the impact of measuring call center average hold time can’t be underestimated in any case, at least because this metric can point to serious problems in the processes of handling customer queries that can be resolved if noticed timely.
So, what is call center average hold time as a metric? How to measure average hold time properly and what are the formulas? How to reduce call center average hold time effectively?
These questions we are going to answer today.
What is the average hold time?
Call center average hold times, which were sometimes referred to as hold times, is a call center metric that measures the average time a customer spends being put on hold while contacting your call center in order to resolve the issue or get required information. Being put on hold means the period during which the agent stops the conversation and starts looking for required information, while the customer listens to on-hold music.
Obviously, no one likes to be put on hold at all, and when such things happen, every client hopes that it won’t take long. To be put on hold is no different from waiting in a call queue before connecting to an agent, thus means that the customer is passively waiting for an agent to get his work done. Who likes to wait? That’s why when call center hold times go beyond acceptable time frames customers become at least frustrated, but in most cases - angry, which boosts the chance of creating conflict sky-high. Thus, measuring call center hold times is one of the most important tasks in call center analytics, yet often call center executives undervalue the matter of it.
Exact reasons why call center hold times are important for your business
Call center hold times affect customer experience
As we have mentioned earlier, call center hold times are the factor that strongly influences customer experience - in many ways. The shorter is call center hold time on average, the better it is for customer satisfaction, and vice versa. Thus, if you ignore the value of call center hold times, it may result in negative consequences for customer experience, and even in increased customer churn. There is nothing that frustrates customer more that unneeded delays and push to wait on hold - therefore, you have to pay more attention to avoiding too long call center hold times in your customer service center.
Call center hold times affect operational efficiency
Call center hold times are included in the overall time for resolution of the customer issue, as well as in the overall average handling time (Average Handle Time, AHT), which means that the longer call center hold times are, the longer are the resolution times - and the worse is your operational efficiency in the case of handling customer inquiries. This will result in fewer customer requests resolved during the work shift, longer Average Handle Time and in overall decrease of productivity of your call center teams.
Call center hold times point to internal issues
Noticing too long call center hold times is a good moment to think about potential issues in handling internal processes. Why do such long call center hold times occur? Perhaps, your customer service agents aren’t trained enough to handle customer calls without a need to search for such huge amounts of information from knowledge bases? Or maybe there is no effective internal system for getting this information in time? Or, in some cases, you lack internal communication tools for agents to coordinate their actions? Maybe, there are too few agents during peak call times, which results in extended hold times?
Call center hold times affect customer retention
As you can guess, call center hold times, as the factor with a negative influence on customer satisfaction, have a direct influence on customer retention too. This happens in the following way: a customer calls your customer service representatives, they put him or her on hold, hold times go and go, a customer starts feeling uncomfortable and angry, hangs up the call, and…leaves your company. Aren’t we exaggerating? Well, no, at least because most customers state they would have left their brand after even one negative experience - and the example above is a sample of a very negative experience. Thus, shorter hold times is the way to building exceptional customer experiences.
What is the formula for calculating call center average hold times?
Well, first of all, let’s deal with the definitions. Call center hold times and call center average hold times aren’t similar - in the first case, we talk about all the average duration of the hold times in your call center, while in the second case we discuss the average hold times. In the case of managing hold times, we always measure hold times on average - this makes it easier to analyze.
Thus, the formula for average call center hold times will be following:
Average hold times = Total duration of hold times/Overall number of calls that were put on hold
Therefore, let’s look at the example of the average hold times calculator. Let’s imagine that you have the overall duration of hold times of 700 minutes for 2000 calls.
700/2000 = 0.35 seconds of average hold time
What is the call center average hold times benchmark?
In fact, there is no generally accepted call hold times benchmark. First of all, it can slightly differe from industry to industry - as each one has its specifics - but also because there is still too little research regarding the call center hold times. To find out what is the perfect benchmark for call center hold times, we have to pay attention to call center abandonment rate - the metric that measures how many customers hag up the call after a certain duration of waiting on the line. Yes, in most cases call center abandonment rate is measured for calls that haven’t been answered by suitable agents, thus they have been abandoned even before the conversation with the customer service teams could have been started, but one thing is in common with call center hold times - the time which customers consider acceptable to wait.
In general, customers aren’t willing to wait any longer than 40 seconds - after this moment the percentage of hang-ups grows dramatically. Thus, your minimal starting point and your least ambitious goal for managing call center hold times is 35 seconds on average - to avoid any issues. But if you can do it even less, then come on.
What are the connected call center metrics to call center hold times?
- Average Call Handle Time - measures average time agents spend on resolving the call (not the issue!).
- Average Talk Time - agent performance metric, measures time spent on call excluding the call center hold times themselves.
- Contact Resolution Rate - an essential metric, shows how many customer contacts were resolved.
- Average Call Duration - a metric for customer service quality measurement, shows the duration of calls.
- Service Levels - shows whethet the pre-set service levels were met or not.
- Average Speed of Answer - shows how quickly agents answer the calls.
- Customer Satisfaction Levels - measure whether customers are satisfied with the service or not.
All these metrics are used as Key Performance Indicators, especially to find out the cause for excessive hold times. Measuring these metrics is a good way to provide positive customer experience, improve quality of customer service and boost agent efficiency. You can't build business growth without proper managament of those metrics and providing seamless experience to clients.
How to reduce average call center hold times?
Start from automatic measuring of average hold times
First of all, you require a system that will help you manage call center hold times automatically. We mean a call center software that will automatically calculate and provide you with comprehensive data about average call center hold times in real time, which will help you to keep track of every change in hold times, thus controlling the situation and resolving issues right away when they occur. On the other hand, you have to remember that manual management of call center hold times is almost impossible - you will have to review each call manually, which will consume too much time - more than you can even imagine.
Identify the root cause for long call center hold times
Every problem has a cause, and your goal is to identify this cause as soon as possible, as resolving the cause is the only way for absolute resolution of the problem with the guarantee that it won’t come back soon. In most cases, causes for long call center hold times include:
- Inappropriate agent qualification - agents struggle to resolve issues based on their knowledge of the product and soft skills, which results in their chaotic tries to find information in different sources, which requires too much time.
- Lack of tools - agents sometimes lack internal knowledge bases with comprehensive search engines that allow them to find relevant information in a few clicks, which results in their inability to find solution timely.
- Lack of communication inside the team - sometimes there is no way to resolve the issue without contacting other team members, which requires specific communication environment and tools, which are often inaccessible in some call centers.
- Lack of data synchronization - often agents put customers on hold to find information about them, their product and the issue, and when the data isn’t synchronized with the system where agents are operating, it also prolongs the call center hold times.
Lack of other communication channels
Do you know that phone calls are the only communication channel in customer service where call center hold times exist? Obviously, when you use text channels to communicate with customers, there is no way to put customers on hold. Thus, if you suffer from long call center hold times, isn’t this a moment to consider setting up an omnichannel communication platform? Yes, it won’t directly resolve the issue of long call center hold times, yet it will have positive impact on customer experience and on hold times too - at least a big part of customer requests will be processed without calling your contact center agents directly, thus they will have less calls that can be put on hold. Also, consider adding callback option through Interactive Voice Response (IVR) system, and some customer self-service options.
Analyze calls in detail
Even though we have provided you with the most common causes for long call center hold times, each case is unique - therefore it has to be analyzed to understand what is the root cause for such hold times. To do so, you have to set up call recording and call monitoring system to listen to calls in real time or to recordings of past calls. It is even a better idea to use speech analysis software, that will analyze the calls automatically and provide you with detailed insights about the reasons for low customer satisfaction, and also about agent performance, which is the key to answering why agents put customers on hold for that long.
Train agents properly
When you know the reasons for long call center hold times, it is a moment to offer solutions. As putting customers on hold is always a result of an agent’s inability to find fast and relevant solutions, you have to focus on improving agent qualification and skills. This can be done only through training - so think about upgrading your training program by providing agents with relevant training regarding avoiding putting customers on hold, identifying the root cause of customer issues, improvising active listening skills, and so on. The way to resolve customer complaints quickly goes through improving soft skills and hard skills, so the quality of training and your ability to adapt to current situation will define your success in this field.
Conclusion
So, you now know what is call center hold time, how to measure call center hold time and what are the call center hold time standards. Let’s repeat this once again: average hold time for customer service is an extremely important metric that has to be regularly measured and managed effectively in order to avoid customer churn and call abandonment. If you want to reduce average holding time in your organization, you have to follow some rules: analyze calls, find root cause for long call center hold times, train agents in order to resolve the route causes for this issue and use modern solutions that will help to automate this process.
