The Seven Factors of Caller Tolerance

According to Brad Cleveland and Julia Mayben, authors of the book Call Center Management on Fast Forward, there are seven factors of caller tolerance. These are specifically speaking about how long people will wait and what makes some people wait longer than others.

As I mentioned a couple months ago in an email regarding our SLA (Service Level Agreement), Magazines.com goes way out of the way to make our customers happy. Many companies go with an 80/20 rule. This means they want to answer 80% of their calls in 20 seconds or less. Magazines.com has a 96/0 rule. We want 96% of our calls answered as they come in, and most days, weeks and months we make it. This is one reason we hear a TON of customers say "wow, you picked up right away." We are far away from the average company. This means that in most people's eyes we are overstaffed. The argument goes that since the average person is willing to wait 20-30 seconds without getting at all frustrated, you should make them wait that long. We don't do that.


The 7 -
1 - DEGREE OF MOTIVATION - How motivated are the callers. For us, when there is a sale on they are more willing to wait. Customers who HAVE to talk to us to cancel are willing to wait but are often not as patient. Customers with questions may wait, or they may move on to a different company.

2 - AVAILABILITY OF SUBSTITUTES - If they have many options, which they do when it comes to magazines, they are less likely to wait.

3 - COMPETITION'S SERVICE LEVEL - This is where we win BIG over our competition. Many of our competitors have longer hold times. Amazon, for an example, wont allow people to order over the phone, you have to place on the website.

4 - LEVEL OF EXPECTATIONS - Each customer has their own expectation. Some are not accepting of any hold time, some don't mind 5 minutes.

5 - TIME AVAILABLE - If you are on a lunch break and have no place to go, you are probably OK with waiting a bit longer than if you are in a hurry.

6 - WHO'S PAYING FOR THE CALL - Cell phone minutes could be adding up??? Now a days most companies have toll free numbers. But cell phone minutes could make a difference on how long someone wants to wait.

7 - HUMAN BEHAVIOR - The weather, the caller's mood and the time of day can have a bearing on caller tolerance.



These seven factors are not static, they change constantly. Even so, it is important to have a general understanding of the factors affecting our callers' tolerance.

If we are in Q and you notice someone has waited over a minute.... Do you thank them for waiting? At least acknowledge you know they have been waiting?