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Tips To Avoid Dead Air During Calls

5 Tips To Train Your Agents To Avoid Dead Air During Calls

Dead air might not be perceived as a big problem in call centers, but it causes discontent to our customers. Who likes to be kept waiting? It could also affect the performance of your call center operation because it is time we are not using. For this reason, it is key to train our agents on how to avoid dead time during calls. Here are some great tips to avoid it!

What is Dead Air?


Dead air are the long moments of silence during a call and can be caused for many reasons; maybe the call center agent needs to find more information, manage a slow system, or wait for programs or data that have to be processed.

1. Small talk (chit-chat)

Your agents can build some rapport. Recommend them to ask customers about the weather or share about a familiar topic to keep the conversation while processing information or researching. However, be sure to remind them about reading the customer; some people may be all about the chat, but some others don't want to hear about anything else except the resolution of their problem.

2. Research thoroughly about the issue

Call center agents can also ask more questions about the problem or service that the customer called for. They can ask the customer about what happened, how it affect him/her, what has the person done before calling. This can also help to get insights about the customer to give them a better experience.

3. Promotions, incentives and up-selling opportunities

To gain value of the waiting time, call center agents can inform the customer about the promotions, incentives or up-sell products. This is a great opportunity to do so. But, again, it must be something that really matters to the customer, otherwise, this will be just noise for the customer.

4. Explain to the client what you are doing step by step

Call center agents can explain the customers what they are doing so they know that the representative is taking action to solve their issue. It is also helpful to repeat the information that they are submitting; this way the client can double-check if the information is correct.

5. Let the customer relax for a moment

Maybe the customer wants a moment of silence. In this case, call center agents should always inform the customer that they will be working on their issue and let them know they can interrupt them for any questions they might have at any time. This way the other person can also work on something else while waiting.


Bonus Tips!


Avoiding dead air is not only a task for our call center agents, the Management Team can also take some action to reduce this issue: 

  • Give constant maintenance to computer equipment

  • Research why your software might work so slow

  • Review your processes to make them simpler

  • Be sure you are training your team correctly in order to have the information they need to solve any kind of issue at the moment


At Call Center Services International, we take pride in our world-class contact center agents for their excellent skills and service oriented mindset. Discover more about CCSI’s Agent Training & Development.