Not Fazed by Call Time Silence? 3 Reasons You Should Care 50% More
- October 30, 2018
- Category: Speech Analytics
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Debt collection calls are more than a regular conversation. Empathy, tone of voice and enhanced listening skills are all necessary components to the success of a call. While these aspects all play a major role in calls as a whole, we did some digging to find out what represents the remaining structure of an average call, and the results were staggering.
According to our data, 50% of call time is silence. The biggest silence blocks were analyzed, and we’ve come up with the core root causes. With some minor adjustments and further training, call time silence can be reduced to encourage better customer experience and an overall increase in collections.
It’s very important to strike a balance between handling a call on your own and knowing when to transfer. Excessive transfers can lead to long hold times, interrupted conversations, and poor consumer experience through frustration and delays.
Provana Tip #1: Training agents to promptly ask a consumer at the beginning of the conversation what the call purpose is can significantly reduce the number of inefficient call transfers. Identifying their objectives for the call can eliminate unproductive and impromptu transfers, or the agent may even be able to help the consumer without the need to transfer.
Typically, the agent will need to locate that consumer in their transaction system. While an agent is searching for account information, consumer frustration builds in direct proportion to the hold time.
Provana Tip #2: This hold time can be easily reduced by providing additional training to agents to quickly locate information, or by way of creating shortcuts in the transaction system. These shortcuts should quickly address the most commonly sought out information or frequently asked questions on a call.
A third major aspect of silence on a call is due to an agent taking excess wrap time, even though the conversation has ended. The agent may not have disconnected because they are updating the collection system with their notes, or they are reviewing the notes for too long after the conversation has ended.
Provana Tip #3: Training agents to type their notes as they converse with consumers can be beneficial. If an agent completes all notes while on the call, the account can then be closed at the end of the conversation, freeing up time to jump on the next call in queue.
Silence on calls leads to elevated consumer frustration levels and a decrease in collector effectiveness. Reducing call time silence can lead to improved levels of collector productivity and consumer experience. By monitoring every call through a speech analytics software and providing further agent training, call time silence can be reduced by 10% or more, resulting in better customer experience and improved collections.