Placing a caller on hold in your business is never the best practice but from time to time it is necessary and teams need to know how to do this correctly.
If your team do not know how to place a caller on hold correctly it can be a disaster waiting to happen, and your patients will be the ones that suffer the most.
Placing a caller on hold is an art. Some team members just seem to know how to do this easily without too much effort, some need to be shown and get it straight away once they know how and others take a while to master the art of on hold. But with correct guidance, practice and reassurance team members are all capable of correctly placing a caller on hold.
BTW it took me a little time to master this art and I remember feeling at first that I would never quite get it right and over time and perseverance I got better and better and managed not to hang up on anyone.
I’m going to share with you my top 9 mistakes made whilst placing a caller on hold, THE WRONG WAY and yes I made ALL of these mistakes once upon a time in a land far away!
Mistake #1
Rushing to place a caller on hold and not letting the caller know your name and sounding like you are in a mad hurry!
Mistake #2
NOT asking for the caller’s NAME!
Mistake #3
NOT asking for permission to place the caller on hold.
It sounds like this…..”Sorry I’m just going to put you on hold.” or sort of asking permission but not waiting for the reply of “yes” from the caller. Sounds like this, “Do you mind if I place you on hold?” No reply and MUSIC PLAYS!
Mistake #4
Your patient having to endure the awful repetitive music or chimes, that for some reason you thought was a brilliant choice and really it is NOT! This inevitably makes the caller feel like they have been on hold for much longer than they actually have!
Mistake #5
Being told during the on hold message, “Your call is important to us.” If the call is so important you want to do everything you can not to place the caller on hold or not for too long at least!
Mistake #6
Not pressing the On Hold Button and the caller hears you in the background, maybe even talking about them. Ouch! This can be very dangerous indeed!
Mistake #7
Keeping the caller on hold for way too long. Customer Service Surveys have shown the average tolerance level for callers waiting on hold is two minutes or less. 13% of callers surveyed said they were not ok with any time on hold. So be careful.
I know you thought it was longer. I listen to a lot a of phone calls while patients are on hold for longer than 2 minutes, and what they say as they get more frustrated on hold, can be quite ugly!
Mistake #8
Coming back to the caller and asking them to continue staying on hold rather than offering to take down their contact details so you can call them back and avoid wasting their time on hold.
Mistake #9
Forgetting the caller and not coming back to them forcing the caller to get angry and hang up the call.
So the next time you place a caller on hold think about what they might be saying out loud while they are on hold waiting for you. I know you are busy when this is happening but so is your patient.
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There are a total of 42 Learning Videos and over 60 Worksheets, Checklists, Templates, Scripts and Flowcharts to help support your team’s learning.
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