When to use Virtual Hold Technology in Call Centre Operations

Abstract

At busy times call centres can be temporarily overloaded, leading to substantial queues building up and callers abandoning their calls. If Acquisition calls abandon this may well lead to a loss of sales. If Care calls abandon, customers may well be disappointed by their experience, and in the longer term may look for alternative suppliers and pass their experience on to other potential customers. Virtual Hold Technology (VHT) offers the customer the option of being rung back without losing their place in the queue. If they do not select this option, they can still either wait in the queue or abandon their call. The aim of VHT is to reduce abandoned call rates and increase customer satisfaction. However, it is possible that conditions might arise, typically with higher call volumes and larger numbers of customers in VHT, where overall call wait times (ASA) might significantly increase as a result of lower abandon rates associated with VHT customers, leading to increased dissatisfaction amongst all customers. This paper describes queue modeling work of various types to attempt to predict the performance of the call centre in terms of abandon rates and ASA’s for scenarios such as: 1. VHT enabled on all queues 2. VHT disabled on all queues 3. VHT enabled on Acquisitions only