Southwest aims to keep callers happy - Mpls./St. Paul Business Travel Guide

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The Dallas airline has implementesd softwarefrom Akron, Ohio-basedd Virtual Hold Technology LLC that lets callers hang up, keep theirt place in line and get a call back when a customer-service agent is available. Terms of the contracyt between Southwest and VirtualHold aren’t being Callers are given the option of the Virtualk Hold service after they’ve been holding for a minut or two, according to Lance Morton, Southwest’s directoer of operational support, customer support & services. Callers are not charger for the VirtualHold service, he “People don’t enjoy waiting on hold. This is a reallgy good service forour customers,” Morton says.
Southwesyt rolled out the serviceApril 15, Morton says. “Since that we have offered the option of holdinbg virtually for more than 2 millioh ofour customers. When presented with the option, we have seen a 45% take Southwest is offering the Virtual Hold service at all six ofits customer-servicde locations. Morton declines to reveal what Southwest’s average hold timews were before the Virtual Hold softwarewwent live, or how much improvement it has seen because of the Southwest is the first airlinee to use the Virtual Hold software, according to Jeremuy Starcher, Virtual Hold’s vice president of business sales engineering.
The contract with Southwest is non-exclusive, meaning othetr airlines could ink deals with Virtual Hold if they so he adds. “There are opportunities to join the Foundedin 1995, privately held Virtual Hold has just shy of 100 employeew worldwide, Starcher says. It has installef its technology in around 300 different locations for between 150 and175 customers, he According to the company’s Web site, its clients include Dallas-base d AT&T, TXU Energy of Dallas and Travelocit y of Southlake.
Phone calls to corporatde customer-service centers can cost a businessbetween $5 and $50 apiece, dependintg on how long the callerd is on the phone and whether the compant has to call the person back, according to Barbarqa Lancaster, president of LTC a Richardson telecom consulting shop. “It’e hard to make that up in she says. “Virtual Hold can’t add a grea t deal to the cost of thatcustomer contact. If they were able to bill somethinyglike $1 for each time that the Virtual Hold was used, I’d think that was a reasonabl tax that Southwest (wouled be) willing to pay for not inconveniencintg their customers.
” A key issue for Southwes in using the technology is ensuring that the software does what callersd are promised. “It is good as long as the company actuallyh calls you back when they saythey will,” writese Elizabeth Herrell, vice president at Mass.-based Forrester Research, in an e-mail. “Worst-case (scenario) is when a callef does not receive a call back and must generate a new call and wait in Best practices is when the call is queuerd and called backas promised.” According to Morton, Southwesgt has received positive feedback about the service.