How long do your customers wait on the phone?
The voice on the phone is often a customer's very first contact with your business. It is almost always the thing cared for least: a menu recorded five years ago, default hold music, and a wait whose length nobody knows.
Two numbers you should know
- The average speed of answer for each queue: how many seconds, on average, before a human picks up.
- The abandonment rate: the share of callers who hang up before anyone answers.
Both are in your phone system. If nobody looks at them every week, they are probably higher than you think — and they climb at the same hours, every day.
What makes people wait
- Sizing for the average. On Monday from 8 to 10 a.m., a clinic gets three times its average call volume. A system sized for the average overflows every Monday.
- A menu that is too long. Every option adds seconds before the queue even starts. The ideal menu reads in under twenty seconds, with reception last and "for anything else."
- An overflow that doesn't exist. The queue rings, nobody answers, and the call waits indefinitely instead of moving to another team, a cell phone or a callback offer.
- Nobody can see the queue. Without a real-time board, the manager learns about the problem from the complaints.
What shortens it
- Size simultaneous calls for the peak, not the average.
- An overflow per queue, after a set delay: another team, a cell phone, a voicemail that promises a callback — and the callback.
- A board the manager can see: calls waiting, agents available, longest wait. IQ Center shows it in real time and alerts when a queue drops below its service level.
Putting the wait to work
The wait will never disappear completely. But it can be useful:
- A hold message that informs: hours, address, parking, what to bring. Some callers hang up satisfied.
- Hold music that carries your promotion of the month. For a dealership, the wait becomes the announcement of the seasonal maintenance special.
- Messages produced in minutes, by professional voice synthesis, in French and English in the same voice — so they change when the offer changes, not once every five years.
That is what we build into every system, and it is point 6 of what changes with UC365.
The test
Call your own business, on a Monday at 9 a.m., from an unknown number. Time it. Listen. In three minutes you will know what your customers already know.
Let's talk about what your phone system really costs you.
A 20-minute conversation, no commitment. We look at your situation, tell you what we would do, and you decide.