Hold time

Hold time is the length of time a caller spends waiting on hold, whether in a queue before anyone answers or after a receptionist says "one moment, please".

Almost every clinic puts callers on hold sometimes. A receptionist answers, realizes someone is waiting at the counter, and asks the caller to hold. Or the phone system parks new calls in a queue with music until a line is free. Either way, the caller is spending time with nothing happening, and their patience is limited.

Two kinds of hold

It helps to separate the two. Queue hold happens before pickup and shows up in your average speed of answer. In-call hold happens after pickup, when the receptionist pauses the conversation to check the schedule, find a record or ask a vet a question. Phone reports often lump them together, so check how your system defines the figure before you act on it.

Why long holds hurt

Long holds lead straight to abandoned calls. They also change the mood of the call that follows: an owner who waited a long time arrives irritated, which makes the conversation slower and harder for the receptionist. For anxious callers, such as someone worried about their pet, a long silence on hold can feel much longer than it is.

Ways clinics shorten it

The fixes are mostly about workflow. Some clinics agree that the person at the counter comes first, but every phone hold has a maximum before the receptionist returns to the caller. Others offer a callback request instead of holding, so the owner can hang up and get a call at a set time. Answering routine questions from a shared sheet helps too, so the receptionist does not need to leave the call to ask someone. Overflow answering takes the extra calls during busy periods so the queue never builds up in the first place.

A short, honest hold message also helps. Telling callers roughly what to expect, or offering a callback, respects their time more than looping music.

An example

At a two-vet clinic, the receptionist answering phones also handles payments at checkout. During the evening pickup rush, callers end up on hold while she runs cards. The clinic sets a rule: if a caller would wait more than a short moment, she offers a callback instead, and calls that arrive while she is on another line go to overflow.

How Tilly handles it

Tilly doesn't put callers in a queue: each call that reaches Tilly is answered, and Tilly reads availability from your practice software during the call. Callers who want a person are offered a transfer or callback.

For the cost of long waits, see the cost of missed calls article and the call abandonment rate entry.