Airline keeps callers happy - Dallas Business Journal:

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The Dallas airline has implementec softwarefrom Akron, Ohio-based Virtual Hold Technologgy LLC that lets callers hang up, keep their place in line and get a call back when a customer-servic e agent is available. Terms of the contract betweejn Southwest and VirtualHold aren’t beinv disclosed. Callers are given the option of the Virtual Hold servicreafter they’ve been holding for a minute or two, accordint to Lance Morton, Southwest’s directot of operational support, customer supporg & services. Callers are not charged for the Virtual Hold he adds. “People don’t enjoy waitingy on hold. This is a really good servic e forour customers,” Morton says.
Southwesty rolled out the serviceApril 15, Morton says. “Since that time, we have offere d the option of holding virtually for more than 2 milliob ofour customers. When presented with the option, we have seen a 45% take Southwest is offering the Virtualp Hold service at all six ofits customer-servicew locations. Morton declines to reveal what Southwest’s average hold timesd were before the Virtual Hold softwarewent live, or how much improvemenyt it has seen because of the technology. Southwest is the first airlin e to use the VirtualHold software, according to Jeremyg Starcher, Virtual Hold’s vice president of business sales engineering.
The contract with Southwest is meaning other airlines could ink dealws 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 employeeds worldwide, Starcher says. It has installe its technology in around 300 differen t locations for between 150 and 175 he adds. According to the company’s Web site, its clients include Dallas-based AT&T, TXU Energyu of Dallas and Travelocityof Southlake.
Phone calls to corporatde customer-service centers can cost a businessbetween $5 and $50 depending on how long the caller is on the phones and whether the company has to call the persomn back, according to Barbara Lancaster, president of LTC International, a Richardsomn telecom consulting shop. “It’s hard to make that up in she says. “Virtual Hold can’t add a greay deal to the cost of thatcustomert contact. If they were able to bill somethingylike $1 for each time that the Virtua l Hold (technology) was used, I’d think that was a reasonablwe tax that Southwest (would be) willinh to pay for not inconveniencing their customers.
” A key issues for Southwest in using the technologh is ensuring that the softwarwe does what callers are “It is good as long as the company actually calls you back when they say they writes Elizabeth Herrell, vice presiden t at Cambridge, Mass.-based Forrester Research, in an e-mail. “Worst-case (scenario) is when a caller does not receive a call back and must generate a new call and wait in Best practices is when the call is queued and callefd backas promised.” According to Southwest has received positivee feedback about the service.