Average wait time message using current queue activity?
Posted Feb 06, 2019
Is the intention of the Average Wait Time messaging to set the expectation for the customer?
We find that it can be misleading, because it uses a 24 hour period. We have a natural lull in the morning and a peak later in the day. The 24 hour average could be 3 minutes during the peak, while the average displayed in the Current queue activity could be 10x or more. The message doesn't set realistic expectations for the customer in that scenario.
Is there any plan to change which metric the messaging reports? Or allow for an administrator to select the metric the message reports? It would be a great tool in setting accurate expectations for our customers.
Thanks!
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19 comments
Jamie Noell
When we've had a peak in calls, the message might be played during the rest of the day when in reality there's no more serious wait time. Conversely, depending on the time of day, the 24 hour average could be 6 minutes, but the current wait time could be 35 min. We have peak seasons rather than peak times of the day, so reconfiguring Zendesk to accommodate the known peaks as well as the unexpected ones would be challenging. We want to keep the average wait time message - I just wish you could define the time would recalculate more often than every 24 hours.
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Manuel Breschi
Hi Gary!
I hope you are doing well! I wanted to follow up and check how things are going with the average wait time message and if you had the opportunity to test what we discussed about a few months ago.
Let me know if I can be of further help,
Best
Manuel
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Manuel Breschi
My pleasure - let me know how it goes!
Manuel
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Gary
Great idea, Manuel! I'll experiment and see how that might work out. Thanks for following up again
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Manuel Breschi
Hi Gary,
you could associate different Schedules to different numbers and use the Routing feature.
This way you can plan your daily routing in advance just once, based on the traffic fluctuations you are experiencing. You can give it a try and see if your customers get a fairer expectation in terms of time to wait.
Manuel
mbreschi@zendesk.com
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Gary
I hear you Manuel, but that requires modifying our configuration in multiple ways, multiple times a day. I think that kind of administration is too costly of an endeavor for us, given that a Zendesk Admin would need to do this.
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Sebastiaan Wijchers
I've had the same feedback a long time ago, but I can't find it. Maybe I didn't share it here, but in a conversation with a Product Manager or so. Anyway, this makes the feature useless for us. We also have very high morning peaks, makes the message kick in for the rest of the day, while wait times could be back at normal levels.
Different numbers also don't really help you out when you make use of IVRs. In the end people don't wait for availability for a certain number or brand, but availability in a certain group.
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Manuel Breschi
Hi Gary,
thanks for your feedback - definitely taken into account for the future, but there's no plan at the moment to change this.
As a temporary work-around with the current set-up you could potentially allocate different numbers on different times of the day, if possible, so that a more precise estimation would be offered to your customers. This of course depends on the numbers availability and how your customers get access to them. Happy to discuss further as needed.
Best regards,
Manuel
mbreschi@zendesk.com
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TJ S
We had the same issue and had to shut off this option. It was causing more frustration for our customers. Wish Zendesk would fix it!
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