As a business, you know that there are times when you receive too many callers and there isn’t enough staff to answer each call right away. To be able to cater to each caller, it’s often an ‘on hold’ juggling act.
In the old days, putting callers on hold means letting your customer listen to an annoying song over and over, although some companies did try to use the opportunity to market and advertise their other products and services.
Later, research revealed that people who were already frustrated by not having anyone respond to their calls were not exactly eager to listen to a sales pitch if produced in a non engaging way.
Today, many customers will call your company using their mobile phones. This new breed of customers are notoriously impatient, and letting them listen to a mind numbing song while you put them on hold is going to spell trouble for your company. They are more likely to hang up than bear listening to on-hold music.
So how do you address this issue? In the modern world of smartphones, you actually have several options:
- Offer a quick online game. Are you familiar with Tetris? That’s a game which you can play for a few minutes and quit any time you want. It’s a fairly effective way to pass the time. Now you can offer your own game that your callers can play while they wait. Just make sure that it’s not a long game. They may be so engrossed with it that they may resent it when somebody from your company interrupts them while playing.
- Provide a Sudoku or crossword puzzle. This may be a simpler alternative, but these types of games are very popular. That’s the reason why these puzzles are often included in newspapers. They can help callers pass the time while they wait, and the challenge of the puzzle can make them forget how long you’re letting them wait. Even a 2-minite wait can seem like a few seconds.
- Present a Trivia Challenge. Trivia games have always been a favourite, which explains the longevity of Jeopardy and Who Wants To Be A Millionaire. Questions like these don’t require master degrees. And people always like being made to feel smart.
Rewarding the Challenge
Now presenting these puzzles and games may already boost your popularity among your callers. But if you really want to make your company shine, you can even offer prizes and discounts to people who win your games and puzzles.
For example, let’s say you offer a trivia challenge with a discount for those who get all the questions right. Through this, you solve the problem of boredom and frustration that usually comes when you put callers on hold. And they won’t mind being put on hold.
But with a prize or a discount at the end, you actually reinforce the idea that calling your company is a positive experience. That can makes your company image look better, and that’s always fantastic for your business.