How to Deal With Challenging Vendors

As I listened, I imagined all the customers who had viewed my beautiful catalog, read my great copy, found a product they really loved, called—and now were hanging up in disgust at the endless wait.

The second hand on my watch was approaching 12 again—11 minutes on hold, and still counting!

At some point in their careers, most catalogers find themselves struggling with a call center that won’t answer the phones quickly enough. Causes for these delays include: phone-line problems that block calls before they reach the call center; phone center software that can’t route calls to operators; call-center managers who can’t match operators with peak load times; and operators who are overwhelmed because the call center has taken on more business than it can handle.