Travelsphere cuts call centre queues

Waiting customers are to be called back

Travel agent Travelsphere has contracted Affiniti, the communications integrator, to prevent customers from waiting in call centre queues.

The OpenQueue call back solution helped solve a 75 per cent increase in demand for staff to cope with the New Year holiday sales rush by offering every customer waiting longer than around 30 seconds the option to request a call back.

If they accept, callers simply leave their name and are automatically contacted later in the day, usually within 15 minutes.

Alex Mead, customer services director of Travelsphere said: 'One of the biggest frustrations for customers wanting to talk to a company on the phone is being stuck in a call centre queue. OpenQueue has helped us to deal with this problem – nearly everyone who requests a call back gets one within 15 minutes, and all within at most an hour.'

So far over 90 of customers that have chosen the OpenQueue option, have opted to receive a call back, rather than continuing to wait on the phone for a response.

In addition to OpenQueue, Affiniti has also installed intelligent call routing technology to direct some overflow calls to a third party.

'OpenQueue is just the start for us - we are already looking into allowing customers to arrange a call back through a simple internet click and being able to request a call back at a specific time with a specific brand representative,' said Mead.

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