Call Center Transformation: Is Waiting on the Phone About to Disappear?

Opinion piece proposed by Samir Dilmi, Chief Revenue Officer at Dydu, for beaboss.fr

In France, call centers occupy a central place in customer relations, with around 3,500 sites spread throughout the country. True showcases for the company, they make it possible to respond to customer requests. In 2023, 78% of French people had contacted customer service at least once, and 55% had done so by telephone, which remains the preferred channel for this type of request¹.

However, the average wait often exceeds their expectations. 45% of customers have a negative memory of their interaction with customer service², and 75.5% say they have switched brands or companies after a bad experience. In this context, while dissatisfaction is mainly due to response times, how can call center practices be adjusted to achieve the long-awaited zero wait time?

Instantaneity and personalization: polarized customer expectations

In a world where everything is accelerating, consumers demand customer service that combines speed and personalization. For 96.5% of them, getting an immediate response is a priority. However, the reality of waiting times remains a major source of frustration: 80% of customers wait more than six minutes before they are taken care of³, while 60% would like assistance in less than a minute⁴. This gap between expectations and reality is widening in the face of increasing call flows and the growing complexity of the cases to be handled. The advisors often struggle to answer all the calls, with an average of 2.8 attempts needed to get an answer⁵.

This tension between the demand for immediacy and the need for a human connection based on empathy and expertise puts the call centers and their teams under pressure. Customer tolerance for waiting is limited: a third of them start to get annoyed after 20 minutes of waiting, and 64% say they would no longer contact the company if the wait exceeded 30 minutes. Poor expectation management can quickly result in a loss of loyalty and a deterioration of the brand image.

To meet these high standards, companies must rethink their approach by integrating tools and strategies that not only reduce waiting times, but also preserve the quality and personalization of interactions.

Zero waiting time: when technology transforms the customer experience

The integration of new technologies is transforming the customer experience. Connected to CRM (Customer Relationship Management) tools, the implementation of chatbots has already made it possible to reduce some of the telephone traffic and provide personalized responses. However, the voice part remains sub-optimized in many companies. Despite the use of Interactive Voice Servers (IVS) for several years, call centers often remain overloaded, resulting in long waiting times, frequent failures and growing frustration among customers.

The integration of callbots in call centers is a real opportunity to improve operational efficiency and customer satisfaction. Available by telephone 24/7, they handle customer calls automatically, in the context of fluid interactions in natural language. They are able to automate certain processes 100% and perform simple first-level tasks such as checking bank overdrafts, providing store addresses and opening hours, etc. They can pre-qualify customer requests, handle calls outside business hours, and make outgoing calls (callbacks, appointment scheduling). By drastically reducing wait times, these tools enable an average productivity gain estimated at 2 hours 20 minutes per day for processing requests.

Companies that adopt these technologies see positive effects: a 20% increase in customer satisfaction⁷, as well as a 40% reduction in the time spent on repetitive tasks⁸. This automation also benefits advisors, whose role is upgraded, strengthening their professional commitment. Freed from these tedious tasks, they can focus on more complex cases that require listening, empathy and personalization, thus improving the customer experience and satisfaction. 60% of employees say they feel more involved in their work when automation frees them from monotonous tasks⁹.

This hybrid model, combining new technologies, artificial intelligence and human intervention, not only relieves the pressure on call centers, but also absorbs requests outside opening hours. It offers a complementary approach where advisors can focus on strategic and rewarding interactions, and free up time for high value-added tasks.

The global customer service market, valued at $16.91 billion in 2023, is expected to grow steadily to $52.54 billion by 2030. With this in mind, call centers need to be transformed to cope with the increase in incoming calls and growing consumer expectations. These centers must evolve gradually to offer a more fluid, fast and customized customer experience.

Sources:

1. Customer Services Observatory of the Year / BVA – 2023
2. Kiamo/Odoxa Study 2023
3. “Vite ma Hotline” Study, En-contact.com
4. Customer Services Observatory of the Year / BVA – 2023
5. Customer Services Observatory of the Year / BVA – 2023
6. An IVR, or interactive voice response, is a computer system that handles incoming calls using recorded voice messages or voice synthesis.
7. Gartner
8. McKinsey study
9. Deloitte