Best tips to manage Call Queueing for Call Center Managers

Have you ever visited a call center? If you do then you will see call center agents attending calls after calls. The very first purpose of setting up a call center is to handle incoming calls and resolve customers’ issues. So, there would be no dearth of incoming calls in a call center. 

But, imagine you are agitating already infuriated customers will long call queuing time. What would be the outcome? Well, your call center would lose its purpose of existence. As per recent research, American consumers spend 13 hours a year waiting in a call queue on an average while 70% of customers already become very frustrated before the live agents talk with them because of high call queuing time.  

Not paying attention to these statistics and ignoring them can conceive the mistake of millennia. This is why one of the main duties of call center managers is to do effective call queue management so that no customer leaves with a discontent heart. 

 But, doing so is indeed an uphill struggle. It demands a very strategically planned solution and a responsive Call Queuing system. Before we start talking about the solution, let’s try to know a little more about call queue management. 

Call Queue – A Quick Overview 

Call queue management is the process of reducing the call waiting time as much as possible while ensuring there is equal workload distribution on the live agents. As call queue management is the pillar of success for every call center, many leading call center software comes with an in-built call queue system which is also known as a virtual queue. 

This virtual queue is basically a virtual line that attends the caller in the absence of live agents.

A call queue, also known as a virtual queue, is a virtual line that caller’s fall into when they call a business, but an agent isn’t immediately available. Once the person is free to take the call, the next caller in line will be connected and heard out by the professional. Below is CallHippo Genius interface, explaining its call queuing process well.

When done correctly, call queue management makes a huge positive impact on:

• Customer satisfaction – With reduced call waiting time, your customers will surely happy with your customer service. 

• Proper work optimization – Using technology like Automatic Call Distributor, you do proper work optimization and distribution. No one agent would be overloaded with the calls while others are sitting leisurely. 

• Better issue resolve ratio – When all calls of the dispute are handled and answered, you will achieve a high issue resolve ratio which is again a good thing for your business.

The above list clearly states that perks of better call queue management are too good to be ignored. Hence, if you are a call manager then you must learn about some smart ways to do effective and viable call queue management. 

As we promised earlier, here are some of our experts’ tips in this regard. 

Use Quick Callback 

As a call center manager, you and your live agents won’t be lay siege to many calls if calls are handled at the very first stage. For this, the call queuing software offers Queue Callback facility. With the help of this facility, you can allow your customers to leave the call in-between if the call waiting time is high. 

Though they would disconnect the calls buy, their request would be in line and as soon as the live agent receives this request, the customers will get an automatic call back. This makes a huge difference in customer satisfaction as they don’t have to wait for the call to get an answer. 

Take the help of right call queuing strategies 

If you’re using the right kind of call center software then you will already have the help of some advanced call queuing tools like IVR, ACD, Auto-answer, Ring All, and so on. The effective implementation of these strategies helps a call manager to handle surging call traffic with no hassle. 

For example, there is a Ring All facility that rings all the live agents of a particular line at the same time. Whosoever is free, will answer the call. It ensures your customers have less call waiting time. 

Implement round-robin routing rule 

Speaking of effective call routing rules, round-robin routing holds great significance and this is the most flexible option that we have as of now. Using this rule, you can easily do even call distribution amongst the team member and route the calls based upon the availability of live agents. 

Display the call metric to the live agents 

Your live agents are the face of your call center. The more responsible they would feel towards their KRA’s, the better they would feel. When you will display statistics like Service Level, Average Speed of Answer, and Average Handle Time, they will be aware of the real scenarios and take part actively. They will be well aware of their specific KPIs and take action accordingly. 

Set limits for the number of call queues and waiting time 

In order to achieve your goal of better call management, you can set limits for tasks like for a number of call queues and waiting time. Without its absence, your live agent will consider 15-minute long call waiting time normal and they won’t be bothered with a high number of call drops and in-line calls.  

You must set a certain number limit, depending upon the call traffic and live agents’ availability, and encourage your live agents never to cross the threshold. This will help you to have consistency in call queuing and address the issue effectively. 

Final Words 

Better call queue management lays the foundation for many immediate and futuristic successes. Starting from offering high customer satisfaction to properly optimized workload, you can get hold of everything anything. This is why you must make a conscious choice while looking for call queuing software and ensure its proper implementation. Your takeaways would be highly beneficial.