For companies with a high volume of inbound calls, a call queue system is absolutely necessary. During busy hours, customers are unlikely to call back in order to speak with an agent. With call queuing software you can keep a caller on hold until one of your agents is available to respond.

Let’s not kid ourselves, there isn't a single customer that enjoys entering a call queue. However, there are cases in which customers will wait. Smart call queue software attempts to make the whole experience more pleasant through several approaches.

One way to make call queuing feel more tolerable is to tell inbound callers exactly what to expect. Letting your customers know how many people are ahead of them in the queue enables them to roughly estimate how much time they have to be patient. This allows them to get on with other tasks in the meantime, while keeping their place in line, or to abandon the call altogether and try again later. Simple call queuing software is usually capable of this. A call queue system that can quote the exact number of minutes remaining before a customer’s call will be attended to is even better.

Another way of alleviating boredom in a call queue is to add music. However, tinny lift music on loop is difficult for anyone to endure, so make sure playlists are crisp, varied, calming and catered to mainstream tastes. Aircall offers 12 royalty free sounds from our integrated media library, or you can upload your own tune.

A third technique to motivate customers to stay on the line is to occasionally play pre-recorded on-hold messages. As is the case with on-hold music, make sure these messages are varied, genuine and clearly spoken. Aircall offers a broad range of pre-recorded text-to-speech (TTS) options in 16 different languages and 15 different voice styles. You can also upload your own custom spoken messages.

Finally, advanced call queuing software offers a call back or voicemail option to inbound callers entering a call queue. This gives the customer a feeling of control, allows busy customers to be attended to even when they don’t have time to wait, and relieves the waiting burden on other callers in the queue as well as the department handling the calls. A win-win for everyone.

With modern call queue software, encouraging inbound callers to skip a call centre queue is easily done. Simply offer your customers the option to receive a call back at a later time when your team is less busy, or encourage them to leave a voicemail so that responding agents are already up to date with the motive of their call and have answers ready. With Aircall, you can also customise the exact call queuing time before an inbound caller is directed automatically to a personalised voicemail.

Allowing inbound callers to skip call queuing is an effective way to reduce call abandonment rate and boost overall customer satisfaction. It also results in less stressed agents

An advanced call back solution goes the extra mile and allows the customer to be the one deciding when to receive the returning call, based on their personal schedule.

Aircall offers automatic call back as one of the many features of our Professional Plan. Once you have set up Aircall’s automatic call back feature, an inbound caller simply has to press the star key to request a call back, and can then hang up and continue their day. Their telephone number is automatically logged and no other information from the customer is needed. Upon pressing the star key, a notification is instantly created in the inbox of your Aircall interface, and the requested department receives an alert. As soon as an agent is available they can click the notification to immediately return the call, and once the customer has been attended to, the software logs it as completed and removes the alert, avoiding duplicate call backs.

Inbound callers are an impatient bunch. In this busy world, do you blame them? Research reveals that two out of three customers will hang up the phone if a human hasn’t responded within two minutes. Some studies even say one minute is enough for 60% of callers to abandon a call queue. Make your inbound callers hold for customer service for just five minutes and it’s likely you’ll lose 89% of them.

It’s abundantly clear that minimising hold time is crucial for keeping customers satisfied with your support line. Thankfully there are multiple strategies to achieve reduced customer queue times.

Conventional wisdom dictates that an inbound call abandonment rate of between 4-8% is acceptable. A 10% abandon rate is considered high and a 0% rate is basically unachievable. Apart from setting up an advanced call queue system, there are other tactics for reducing call abandonment rate as well.

One way of directing customers as quickly as possible to the right answers, without necessarily needing a human agent involved, is an Interactive Voice Response (IVR) menu. In advanced IVR systems particular voice commands trigger actions such as a pre-recorded voice response, a call back scheduling option, or the correct routing of the call in the case that your business operates with several distinct departments using the phones. It can also trigger a computer generated TTS response, handy for when answers are numerical and generic (e.g. in queries about flight times or account balances).

Aircall’s cloud-based VoIP phone system offers all of these valuable features and more from an innovative single interface. The software provides an advanced and customizable call queuing system, as well as tailored IVR menus with advanced call routing, personalised voicemail, and an automatic call back option. Start your free Aircall trial or book a demo to learn about Aircall’s many cutting edge features to help your business build better conversations.