Endless contact centre call queues have always been the bane of a perfect CX. It is estimated that the average American will spend 43 days of his life on hold due to prolonged call queues, andAmericanswaste over 900 million hours every year on hold, collectively. On an individual level, the average queue time is somewhere around56%and after 2 minutes, customers are likely to hang up. At the end of the day, people call your contact centre to hear a human voice, and interactwith a brand that they know and love. Call queues are like a blind wall, stalling CX progress and resolution.
One of the most popular techniques for addressing this is queue position announcements. The idea is to optimise the time when customers are waiting, while also keeping them engaged. However, queue position announcements can work in far more intricate ways, with more overarching impacts.
What is a Queue Position Announcement?
As soon as a customer paces to your contact centre,they are placed on a queue – whether they realise it or not. If they call, face an IVR, put in a callback request, and hang up, they continue to stay in the queue. A queue position announcement can be defined asa pre-recorded audio message that the customer hears during the wait time when they are actually on hold on the line, informing them of how many callers are ahead of them on the queue and/or the estimated time to wait before connecting with a live agent.
Companies typically use queue position announcements as a way to maintain transparency, but there are two sides to the conversation.
Pros and Cons of Queue Position Announcements
Pros– The customer knows exactly how long they might have to wait and can plan accordingly. On a busy workday, theymight hang up and call back at a later time. This also tells the customer which are the best times to reach the contact centre and avoid peak periods. Further, as we mentioned before,silence is a CX killerand an informative announcement keeps customers engaged to an extent. Finally, queue position announcements can be interpolated with promotional messages, as you already have the foundations in place.
Cons – Hearing the same message over and over again can be frustrating, especially if each call takes too long to resolve and there is an impression that the queue isn’t moving at all. Companies also tend to use mechanical voices for queue position announcements, which only adds to the sense of frustration and the perception of being undervalued. And if the wait time is always long, no matter the time of day, your contact centre could get a bad rep for being understaffed or unavailable.
Recommendations for Getting Queue Position Announcements Right
Ultimately, one cannot deny that queue position announcements are necessary for any busy contact centre, despite its cons. Here are three tips to get it right.
- Acknowledge and apologise for customer frustration
- Explain the reasons for long waits, if possible
- Trigger a call back for queues beyond a specific threshold
FAQs
A queue position announcement can be defined as a pre-recorded audio message that the customer hears during the wait time when they are actually on hold on the line, informing them of how many callers are ahead of them on the queue and/or the estimated time to wait before connecting with a live agent.
What does your queue position mean? ›
Queue Position means the order of a completed Application, relative to all other pending completed Applications, that is established based upon the date and time of the, interconnecting Public Utility's receipt of the completed Applications including application fees.
What is the psychology behind queuing? ›
Queue psychology is the study of people's perceptions of and responses to queues, queuing, and waiting. It's the psychology of waiting in line, of how people feel while waiting. And its influence is all around us. Queue psychology is why music plays when you're on hold with the bank.
What is an example of psychology of queues? ›
We perceive occupied time as faster than non-occupied time. Another classic example from queuing psychology comes from airport baggage reclaim.
Why is standing in queue important? ›
But in a world where there is more demand than supply, queuing is a very efficient way to deliver a service without having a scrum of people fighting to get to it first. “It also prevents people who are the loudest, the most devious, the most assertive or the biggest from gaining unfair advantage.”
What is the etiquette in queue? ›
When standing in line, do not crowd the person in front of you. This is perhaps the golden rule of queues. Don't even think about cutting in line. You will leave a group of disgruntled, not to say angry, people behind you.
What is an example of a queue situation? ›
Queues form when there are limited resources for providing a service. For example, if there are 5 cash registers in a grocery store, queues will form if more than 5 customers wish to pay for their items at the same time.
What are the five concepts relating to queuing theory? ›
These include the arrival process, the service and departure process, the number of servers, the queuing discipline (such as first-in, first-out), the queue capacity, and the size of the client population.
What is the anxiety of queuing? ›
“Queue Anxiety” can make the wait seem longer
The fear of being forgotten and the fear of having chosen the “wrong” queue can lead to a customer feeling anxious.
What are the basic characteristics of queuing problem? ›
Characteristics Of Queuing System
Queue size: the size of the input service, which is either finite or infinite. Arrival distribution: the pattern in which customers arrive at the service system or inter-arrival time. Customer behaviour: the way customers respond upon seeing the length of the queue.
Common queue disciplines include first-in-first-out (FIFO), last-in-first-out (LIFO), service in random order (SIRO) etc.
What type of Behaviour do queues exhibit? ›
A queue is used to model systems that exhibit FIFO (First In First Out) insertion/removal behavior.
What are the three components of queuing explain with examples? ›
Components of a Queuing System: A queuing system is characterised by three components: - Arrival process - Service mechanism - Queue discipline. Arrivals may originate from one or several sources referred to as the calling population. The calling population can be limited or 'unlimited'.
What are the three 3 types of queuing systems? ›
1) FIFO (First In First Out) also called FCFS (First Come First Serve) - orderly queue. 2) LIFO (Last In First Out) also called LCFS (Last Come First Serve) - stack. 3) SIRO (Serve In Random Order).
What is the purpose of a queue? ›
Queues provide services in computer science, transport, and operations research where various entities such as data, objects, persons, or events are stored and held to be processed later. In these contexts, the queue performs the function of a buffer.
What are the benefits of queues? ›
Advantages of Queue:
- A large amount of data can be managed efficiently with ease.
- Operations such as insertion and deletion can be performed with ease as it follows the first in first out rule.
- Queues are useful when a particular service is used by multiple consumers.
In contact centers, a queue is where customers virtually wait to interact with an agent. If you have ever called customer service and had to listen to jazzy music while you waited to speak with an agent, you've been in a queue.
What does waiting for your queue mean? ›
As a noun, a queue is a lineup of people or other things. As a verb, queue means to line something up or to form a line. A person in a queue waits their turn.
What does queue mean in payment? ›
queuing. An arrangement whereby transfer orders are held in a queue by the sending participant or by the system until they can be processed in accordance with the rules of the system. In an RTGS system, payments are typically “queued” because of a lack of funds or insufficient access to intraday credit.
What does it mean to be in someone's queue? ›
When people queue, they stand in a line waiting for something. [mainly British] Synonyms: wait in line, line up, stand in a queue, form a queue More Synonyms of queue.
