How to Deal With Challenging Vendors

Unfortunately, once these problems begin, they tend to become worse. Long hold times for inbound callers lead to increased call-abandonment rates, repeat calls and irate customer service calls—all of which further burden the call-center operation.

How can you cope? Following are some tips:

Detect the problem early. Place routine test calls to your catalog’s 800 number. Don’t rely on vendor-generated reports of abandon percentages and average times on hold. Many problems won’t show up in those reports.