Long wait times from Schedule Engine...work arounds

[BlaineStephan]

Hey! This is no slam to Schedule Engine as I know that they are experiencing some significant growth, because their system is really good. The problem is that while they are training new call takers the wait times are too long, we have had our customers wait 15 mins and hang up and others even hang up after waiting 4 minutes. What are other companies doing to give their customers access to emergency service if the wait times are too long. We have wondered if their is a way that we can give our customers a dedicated SMS line that would run through Service Titan, and after so long on hold we would give out that number so that they could bypass the phone call, but it still would be in service Titan. We're just throwing things out there, so any and other solutions would be awesome!! Thanks Team!

[asnow · Accepted solution]

Hey @BlaineStephan ! I was able to touch base with the Schedule Engine team. With the massive surge of traffic starting in June with AC season, this has been a real challenge. The team is hiring a record number of new agents and currently onboarding and training them so they can perform at the high level you all expect and deserve. However, I did find out some good news! They are about to introduce a call back feature to all of their voice clients, so that customers that are faced with a delay to have their call answered will have the option to request a callback for when an agent is available. I know they are expecting to significantly improve their response time by August 22nd, with gradual improvement over the next 2 weeks. I did share your idea with them though. I hope you are able to get your calls answered faster soon! Best wishes!  

[BlaineStephan]

Great News, I am looking forward to seeing things improve, and I appreciate that they are looking at options to help us manage. Thanks for your leg work on this!

[asnow]

My pleasure! 

[mquigley]

I agree if Schedule Engine can't get the call, it would be nice for the customer to be re-routed. Thankfully, our customers try us multiple times. Our customers are able to text our mainline number and our CSRs are able to get back to them. The customers could just book online via Schedule Engine as well. 

[BlaineStephan]

Our biggest issue right now is the long wait times when our CSR's are not available, after 5 on weekdays and on the weekends. At this time the customer isn't able to get the emergency call booked on the weekend through the online scheduler as it doesn't work well with the buffer and so on, do you guys have it set up that a customer can book an emergency call out on the online scheduler? Now that I am writing this out, I am wondering if there is some way that we could do that...... 

[asnow]

Thanks for the additional context... I'll loop in the team and see if I have any additional insight I can share. Keep us updated if it doesn't improve. 

[BlaineStephan]

Last weekend, we had a customer wait 15 minutes and then finally our system timed out and dropped the call, we had other customers that would wait up to 5 minutes plus and then give up and move on. We lost 5-6 potentially new customers and Protection Plan Members and jobs due to no answer. This has been an ongoing issue from the time we started in July.  This has been the response and I can respect it, but I am debating if I need to move the voice portion of my plan to another Service titan Call taking company, Like Power Selling Pros, if they can guarantee that my wait times are decreased. They have suggested pushing the customers to the online booking, but that doesn't work on the weekends for emergencies.

"Thank you for this feedback, we are working on getting even more agents staffed and trained with another class training now and coming on the phones within the next few weeks, and more to come after that to continue to work on the periods where there are long hold times"

[asnow]

Hey Blaine - how long have your wait times been that long? Has this been going on for a while or is it a recent issue? I can loop in the Schedule Engine team and see what's going on. I like your idea of a dedicated SMS line.