Seth's Blog: Please hold

http://sethgodin.typepad.com/seths_blog/2005/12/please_hold.html

Some interesting insights into the problems of dealing with the wait time in an in-bound call centers (like Dell's order center).

The important point he makes is that folks immediately thinks cost cutting when they think about call centers. But in the case of call centers that are taking orders the emphasis should really be on improving the customer's experience so they will spend *more* money.

This reminds me of an idea I read about a while ago - though I don't recall who's idea it was. And that was when a user hit's an error page in your wbe application you attempt to give them a coupon code, or something free. In other words, rather than saying, "oh well, guess you just aren't lucky enough to buy our product today" you say - "whoops, we are totally embarrassed - please take $20.00 off your next order."

Bad things will always happen to customers (they'll be on hold for too long, they'll find a bug in your web application, etc.) but as Seth reminds us - we can actually do something productive about it.

--Ben