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How To Avoid Call Hold Times From Hurting Your Business

It won’t be easy to provide a great experience to callers after they’ve been put on hold. Most customers will tolerate a little hold time but will lose patience quickly, which will result in either an angry caller or even worse – an abandoned call. This will lead to a poor customer experience, which is something not a single company wants to face.

Studies have revealed that an average of 1 minute and 55 seconds of hold time makes most callers hang up annoyed. 34% of those callers who hang up won’t call back. On average, loyal customers are worth up to 10 times as much as their first purchase.

If you lose a recurring revenue customer during the trial stage, you’ll end up with a negative customer lifetime value (CLV) because, most probably, they won’t come back to you again. So it’s critical to avoid losing customers because of long hold times.

Here are 4 tips to help you reduce live customer service costs, reduce chargebacks, and improve customer lifetime value:

  1. Reduce Stress on Your Call Center

Consider using an integrated personalized, automated interactive voice response (IVR) system with your existing call center. This will help you take the pressure off your call center. As a result, your customers who actually need to speak to a customer service representative will have access to them without delay.

  1. Use an Easy Web Interaction Option

A product branded website can help your customers go and quickly take some steps to cancel or suspend shipments. Don’t forget to A/B test your cancellation messaging and offers to them as this will allow for optimizing customer lifetime value.

  1. Test Offers with Your Customers

Don’t fail to test your customer service interactions. Use an A/B testing platform to optimize customer outcomes, which will lift your customer lifetime value. Test your options so to improve customer lifetime value and see which offers customers take more positively, and which will save their business more often.

  1. Handle Customer Disputes Quickly

Respond to customer complaints and do your best to handle them quickly by having a system which doesn’t have hold times or long handle times.

While talking about chargebacks, it’s important to note that with emerchantbroker.com, the #1 high risk payment processor in the US, you can enjoy unmatched chargeback prevention and protection services in the industry. EMB has an A+ rating with the BBB and is rated A by Card Payment Options.

Good customer experience can help you stand out from the crowd. Exceptional experience leads to more satisfied consumers, who will want to do business with you and spend money. Follow the above-mentioned tips to avoid call center hold times and deliver excellent customer experience.