How Energy Companies Can Reduce Call Waiting Times

"Your call is important to us. Please remain on the line until an agent is available to take your call. We will be with you momentarily."

How many times have we heard this? What do we feel when we hear this generic tone demand more patience from us? Frustration? Irritability? Anger?

If we’re feeling it, then our customers are feeling it. We are one and the same.

A BBC Watchdog report has revealed shortcomings of the big energy six, in regards to responding to customers phone line queues. According to the snapshot report, being kept waiting to speak to a representative is one of its viewers biggest annoyances.

On average, the report stated that the longest wait time was found to be 15 minutes.

A contact centre call queue is a fundamental cog in the customer experience journey machine. It cannot be overlooked and has a huge impact on satisfaction results, targets, and even complaint resolutions.

Not only this, but poor customer satisfaction and experience can have a deep impact on whether or not a customer chooses to buy from you. 50% of people reported stopping mid-purchase when they encountered bad customer service¹. Furthermore, a 2015 consumer report states that 75% of customers were “highly annoyed” when they couldn’t reach a representative on the phone in a reasonable amount of time².

The “Big Six” of the energy industry have all responded to the WatchDog report, clarifying their reasoning for their customers’ delays.

EON Energy responded by saying “We’ve recently taken a number of steps to help deliver improvements within our call centres and these are already beginning to have a positive impact.”

With these responses in mind, what solutions could be implemented so energy providers/distributors combat the amount of time customers spend waiting on the phone. Could call tracking be the solution?

Infinity Call Intelligence has been directly responsible for the following outcomes

• Average call wait time of our energy clients’ has been reduced by 32% between October 2017 to October 2018.
• A fully operational call deflection strategy for Sky, watch case study here.
• Worked with British Gas Business who were able to optimise their contact centre’s shift patterns due to our insights, as well as saving 15% of their PPC spend.
• Optimisation of pages driving support calls, for a major brand, thus resulting in millions of pounds saved.
  
  

If you’re keen to reduce your waiting times, whether you work for a big six energy firm or not, start a conversation with Infinity today to see how we can help.

References:

(1,2) - Long Wait Times, ICMI, (2017)