Does great customer service take too long? That may depend on your point of view. For any trucking operation,time is money when it comes to drivers and it is a valuable commodity in a customer service department, too. Some managers and CSRs have convinced themselves that using a script takes too long. Others have landed on a number for an appropriate length of a call such as 3 minutes or less in order to be productive and get the phones answered. It is unclear as to where the magic number of 3 minutes has come from, but it is a good starting point for you to use as you investigate whether that number is realistic or not for your hauling company. In order for you to effectively balance the quality of customer service and time, you need look at the current data regarding customer conversations. There are a variety of different customer calls that come into a customer service department. The short calls are more likely to be related to bill payment or reporting a missed service. The longer conversations revolve around selling and setting up a new service. Companies in competitive areas may find sales-based calls take even more time as they have to overcome a competitor’s price or service promises. To get a better understanding of what it takes to provide great service in the shortest amount of time you need to be able to evaluate your customer conversations. If you don’t currently record and monitor calls, Tooty Inc. can help you create and manage a dynamic program or set up a secret shopper campaign to test current customer conversations.

I recently reviewed the conversations of some of the best performing CSRs for one of my customers to see what their performances could tell us about talk time. These conversations were all from a prospective customer interested in starting service. The average talk time was 5:38. The longest call took 10:36 compared to the shortest call which was 3:09. What took an extra 6:30 in the longest conversation? The CSR added 6 minutes of detailed information about the services, rules and restrictions. TMI, too much information, burns out your customer and can confuse the sales process. It also adds unnecessary time to calls. Your customer service team should have a template or a script for describing service in a concise way. It should balance the information given by the CSR with an effective sales process. That means that rules of service such as restrictions or time to put the trash to the curb are reserved for set-ups only. A script should have basic details that need to be be covered in the conversation. The process for describing services and asking for the sale can be under two minutes when the CSR knows how to take control of the call and use a script effectively.

For comparison I also review conversations for the lowest performing CSRs when it came to handling a new customer opportunity. The average talk time for those calls was 3:40. The longest call was 6:56 compared to the shortest call which lasted only 2:00. The short calls were missing a sales process and seemed to be focused on giving a quick answer and ending the call. This was demonstrated in the shortest call where the CSR provided the rate and pick-up day, but ended without an attempt to set up the service. This broken sales process can be detrimental to a non-franchised hauling company. During the longest call, timed at 6:56, the CSR didn’t seem to know what aspects of the script applied to a set-up and where to stop when the customer says no. The CSR asked for the sale but, when the customer said she wasn’t ready the call dragged on for another 3 minutes. Someone who hasn’t bought from you yet does not care to hear about your rules of service, billing or restrictions. A script should direct for these details to be covered as a part of a new start set-up.

How can you determine the amount of time it really takes to provide quality customer service? Start timing your calls. Sit with each CSR and time them as they take calls. Most CSRs are unaware of where they are wasting time or how to be more efficient. This process will also allow you to do some quality coaching. Break down your data by call type such as bill payment, service issue or new start. Use the best times as your standard for each CSR and create an award for the most efficient CSR each month.