Every single minute your customers spend on hold is a minute they spend looking for a reason to buy from your competitor instead.
You have worked hard to build a team and a brand that people trust, but manual phone support is likely draining your profits and burning out your staff.
It feels like you are stuck between the high cost of hiring more people and the risk of losing frustrated callers who just want a quick answer.
But there is a fix.
In this article, we will go over how you can reduce hold time for your eCommerce phone support.
First, we will look at why old methods like hiring or basic phone menus fail.
Then, we will show you how AI agents can handle all your calls at once.
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Why reducing customer hold time is a must for e-commerce
Waiting on hold is more than just an annoyance for your customers; it directly hits your bottom line.
Today's online shoppers expect immediate answers, and any delay in the support process can quickly send them to a competitor's website.
Here’s a closer look at how long hold times can hurt your business:
- Increased cart abandonment: Many customers call with last-minute questions about shipping, returns, or product details before they complete a purchase. When they can't get a quick answer, they often leave. In fact, 21% of shoppers abandon carts because delivery is too slow, and 18% leave due to a checkout process that feels too long or complicated. Waiting for support is a big part of that feeling.
- Lower customer satisfaction (CSAT): The support experience is a direct reflection of your brand. A long wait is one of the fastest ways to create a negative impression, even if the eventual answer from your team is helpful. That initial frustration colors the entire interaction.
- Higher operational costs: When customers finally reach a human agent after a long wait, they're often already upset. These conversations tend to be longer and more complex, increasing your cost per call. It also ties up your support team with issues that could have been resolved instantly, preventing them from focusing on more important tasks.
Traditional methods to reduce hold times and their limitations
Businesses have been trying to solve the hold-time problem for years.
While traditional methods can offer some relief, they often come with trade-offs, especially for growing e-commerce brands that need to be flexible and cost-effective.
Hiring more support agents
The most obvious solution seems to be adding more people to answer the phones.
In theory, more agents mean more calls can be answered at once, shortening the queue.
However, this approach has some clear downsides:
- High cost: Hiring isn't cheap. You have to account for salaries, benefits, training, and equipment for each new team member. These costs add up quickly and become a major ongoing expense.
- Scalability issues: E-commerce sales can be seasonal. It’s incredibly difficult and expensive to quickly hire and train qualified staff for peaks like Black Friday, only to scale back down when the rush is over. You're either overspending in the quiet months or understaffed during the busy ones.
- Limited availability: Providing true 24/7 coverage with a human team is often financially out of reach for most online stores. This means you’re missing out on sales from late-night shoppers or customers in different time zones.
Implementing complex IVR systems
Interactive Voice Response (IVR) is that familiar "press 1 for sales, press 2 for support" system.
While 85.8% of Fortune 500 companies use one, their popularity doesn't always translate to a positive customer experience.
The limitations of IVR systems are pretty clear:
- Poor customer experience: A 2019 survey revealed that 63% of customers listen to irrelevant options, and over half feel that IVR systems are designed to keep them from reaching a live person. This creates frustration before the conversation even begins.
- Limited capabilities: IVRs are rigid. They can't answer tricky questions, understand context, or access real-time order data from your Shopify store to answer simple questions like "Where's my package?"
- Doesn't solve the core issue: An IVR might route a call, but it does nothing to reduce the queue if all your agents are busy. A more recent survey found that about 3 in 5 customers had a bad experience with an IVR simply because it took too many prompts to reach a human.
Outsourcing to a call center
Hiring a third-party company to handle your calls can seem like a cost-effective shortcut, but it often comes with its own set of challenges that can impact your brand.
- Loss of brand control: Outsourced agents often lack deep product knowledge and aren't immersed in your company culture. This can lead to generic, off-brand interactions that don't reflect your unique voice.
- Lack of integration: Most call centers can't connect directly to your e-commerce backend. This means they can't provide specific order details or process returns. They can only take messages, which doesn't solve the customer's immediate need.
How AI phone agents help reduce hold time
Unlike traditional methods that just try to manage customer queues, AI phone agents are designed to eliminate them entirely.
They change how customer phone support works, moving from a one-to-one model to a one-to-many model.
Instead of routing calls one by one to the next available person, an AI agent can handle an unlimited number of calls at the exact same time.
This means every single customer who calls your business gets an answer on the first ring. There is no queue because there is no waiting. This visual breakdown shows the difference:
What makes an AI phone agent truly effective
Not all AI is created equal. For an AI phone agent to be genuinely helpful for an e-commerce store, it needs a few key things that go beyond just answering the phone.
- Simultaneous call handling: The ability to talk to one, ten, or a thousand customers at once is the core technology that makes zero hold time possible. It’s what allows you to scale your support capacity infinitely without hiring.
- 24/7/365 availability: AI is always on. It provides instant support during nights, weekends, and holidays without any extra cost. This is a big deal for capturing sales from late-night shoppers and providing a consistent experience for customers around the globe.
- Direct system integration: To be truly helpful, an AI agent has to connect to your e-commerce platform (like Shopify). This allows it to access live data and provide real-time, personalized answers to questions like, "Where is my order?" or "Has my return been processed?"
- Autonomous actions: The best AI agents don't just provide information; they take action. They should be able to process a return, cancel an order, or update a shipping address directly on the call. This resolves the customer's issue completely, without needing to pass it on to a human.
Using Ringly to reduce hold time
Ringly.io offers a practical and powerful way for e-commerce stores to achieve zero hold time.
Our AI phone rep, Seth, is designed specifically for the needs of online stores and can be set up in just a few minutes.
Trusted by over 2,179 Shopify brands, Seth acts as your team's first point of contact.
He instantly resolves the vast majority of common support queries, freeing up your human agents for more complex issues.
Key features of Ringly
Seth combines advanced conversational AI with deep e-commerce integration to provide a customer experience that traditional methods just can't match.
- Immediate pickup: With Ringly.io, there is no hold music because there is no hold time. Every single call to your support line is answered instantly, 24 hours a day, 7 days a week.
- Deep Shopify integration: Seth connects directly to your Shopify store to pull live order data. This allows him to answer "Where Is My Order?" (WISMO) calls with perfect accuracy, resolving the single most common support query on the spot.
- High resolution rate: On average, Seth autonomously resolves 73% of calls without any human intervention. This means nearly three-quarters of your support volume is handled automatically, freeing up your team to focus on high-value conversations.
- Smart escalation: Seth isn't a wall. He's trained to recognize when an issue is too sensitive or complex for AI to handle. In those cases, he seamlessly transfers the call to a human agent, providing them with the full context of the conversation so the customer doesn't have to repeat themselves. He acts as an intelligent front door, not a barrier.
A risk-free way to get started
We believe in proving our value before you ever have to pay. Ringly.io offers a unique guarantee: you pay $0 until Seth resolves 60% of calls during the trial period. It’s a completely risk-free way to see the impact on your customer satisfaction and your bottom line.
Stop managing queues and start providing answers
Customer hold time is a quiet killer of conversions and satisfaction in e-commerce.
While traditional solutions like hiring more staff or using IVRs have their place, modern AI offers a scalable and customer-friendly alternative.
AI phone agents like Seth from Ringly.io don't just manage your queues; they eliminate them completely.
By providing instant, 24/7, and deeply integrated support, you can transform your customer service from a cost center into a powerful driver for sales and loyalty.
Ready to reduce your hold time to zero? Start your free 14-day trial of Ringly.io and see how Seth can transform your customer support.
Frequently Asked Questions
How does Ringly reduce customer hold times?
Ringly.io provides an AI phone agent named Seth that answers every call instantly. Because Seth can handle unlimited calls at the same time, there's never a queue, which means customers never have to wait on hold.
What kind of questions can Seth answer?
Seth integrates directly with your Shopify store, so it can answer common questions like "Where is my order?" with real-time information. It can also handle queries about returns, shipping policies, and product details you've provided.
Will the AI agent sound robotic to my customers?
Not at all. Ringly's AI uses advanced conversational technology to sound natural and helpful. Plus, it's trained to recognize when a caller needs to speak with a person and can transfer the call smoothly to your team.
Is it complicated to set up Ringly?
It's surprisingly simple. You can get Ringly.io's AI agent, Seth, up and running in just a few minutes. It's a no-code setup that connects to your Shopify store without needing any developers.
How much does Ringly cost?
Ringly.io has a few pricing plans, but one of the best parts is the risk-free trial. You don't pay anything until the AI agent, Seth, is resolving at least 60% of your support calls, so you can see the value first.
