How Long Should You Keep Your Customers On-Hold?

People hate being put on hold, but what they hate more is being on hold in silence. But how long should you be keeping your customers on-hold? And what’s the optimum time before they simply hang up?

Velaro did a study in 2012 and revealed:

• 32.3% of callers believed they should never have to wait on-hold
• 27.6% said they’ll wait on hold for one minute
• 30.2% said they’ll wait for one to five minutes
• 9.9% said they’ll wait 5-10 minutes or as long as it takes

The average call centre hold time is estimated at 13 minutes, so when 57% of customers find long hold times to be a frustrating part of the service experience. [HubSpot] obviously, reducing hold times should be the goal, but when you are unable to do that it’s important to have procedures in place to minimise dissatisfied customers. After all, A good customer service experience heavily impacts recommendations. Customers who rate a company’s service as “good” are 38% more likely to recommend that company to friends and family. (Qualtrics XM Institute) and 72% of customers will tell six or more people if they have a satisfying experience. (Esteban Kolsky).

So, we all know that popping your customers on hold is inevitable, just try and keep it to less than 2 minutes, otherwise, you could be losing valuable customers and if you must keep them on-hold, don’t do it in silence!

Check out are FAQ blog for more info on best practices for your on-hold marketing.