Dead Air

Dead Air is the time span between words/sentences during a call. An agent needs to worry only about long periods of dead air. Dead air happens when there is no communication. This could be due to various reasons.

Insufficient product knowledge
Referring to the manual while on call.
Waiting for the database to appear on the screen
While typing
While waiting for downloads, upgrades etc

How does one control dead air? The easiest way is by using fillers like OK, All right, Go ahead, Please proceed...etc. Other fillers are echoing the customer's name, numbers etc while reconfirming the customer's information and type simultaneously. These types of fillers are used when the time span of silence is just a few seconds or less than a minute. When the agent is pulling up a record or checking the warranty status, he needs a minute. At this time, he should inform the customer what he/she is doing.

At the initial stage of the call, when you have to pull up the records, you could say, "Please give me a moment while I pull up your records". This is called buying time. The customer is given a reason for the pause.

If the silence is going to be for more than a minute, the agent should put the customer on hold.