Key Facts
- 66% of shoppers change their loyalty if they face bad customer service. – Accenture
- 47% of shoppers want a fast reply to all questions, problems, feedback, or complaint.
- “If you take care of your employees, they will take care of the clients.”- Richard Branson
- 78% of customers believe happy service can only be possible with good agents and representatives. Source: The Cost of Poor Customer Service
- 35% of people have lost their temper whilst interacting with service.- American Express
- 91% of unhappy shoppers will not do business with your firm ever again. – Lee Resources
- “Customers do not expect you to be perfect. They do expect you to fix things when they go wrong.” – Donald Porter
The Holiday Season (Christmas and New Year) is significant for every retailer on earth, as the period sees significant growth in sales for all markets and sectors. This spur in the purchase rate occurs due to the fact that most people buy supplies and gifts for themselves and their loved ones. Because of this surge, businesses always stay on their heels to deliver the best experience to all their customers and clients, despite the huge rush.
Providing perfect consumer support during the holiday season may just be uphill for not only your support team but also for your whole organization. Here’s a guide on how to properly handle your client support structure during the holiday period in a very efficient and effective way.
Create a concrete plan beforehand
66% of shoppers change their loyalty if they face bad customer service – Accenture.
If you really want to tackle the holiday period as a pro, then you have to plan beforehand. Making a strategy right at the 11th hour won’t be a plausible thing to do.
You need to quickly do the following:
- Set up prior goals and objectives.
- Implement feedback from existing clients.
- Check your current workflow rate and number of successful cases.
- Understand what your shoppers need and want.
- Hire or give extra training to current employees.
- Buying more equipment or overheads like tools or office space etc.
- Dedicate a larger budget for customer support only for the holiday period.
- Check out the trends—of your own previous experiences and of the market—to estimate and forecast on how many inquiring shoppers you will get.
[READ MORE: How to sell products that are low in demand or unpopular]
Whatever decision you make or ignore, you have to start as early as possible so that you have a proper roadmap on the table for everyone to understand.
Use tools to make the process a breeze for everyone
63% of firms expect to spend more money on shopping support experience. – Temkin
It does not matter how good and competent your support team is if it has to trade with outdated technology and machine. As a company, you have to provide your agents with the right tools to have a meaningful conversation and interaction with your shoppers.
Provide training and empower your team
Time is of the essence during the holidays; be confident that your customer support team can handle and solve cases quickly. Empowering your team is one of the best ways to lower turnaround time. Just make sure your team has the knowledge to handle most cases, and they have the right information and data to solve issues and answer questions. Once they have the authority to make calls, you will find faster success rates. Also, train your people about your product and service thoroughly. If they do not know about the core of what you do, then they will falter at even the simplest of questions.
Make consumer support a company-wide policy
77% of firms either want to grow or at least maintain their current support team size for the next couple of years. – Deloitte
There are two possibilities in this respect. First of all, if you believe that you do not need to hire extra people, then you can provide little training and knowledge to your people from other departments and put them in your support team just for the holiday period. This will not only save you tons of money as you won’t have to hire new people, but it would also lessen the pressure on your core support team. All of this will only deliver one single outcome – faster support results.
Provide extra things – keep your team happy and motivated
“If you take care of your employees, they will take care of the clients,” Richard Branson.
The theory is quite simple. If you keep your team motivated and happy, then you will, in turn, make sure that they keep your shoppers happy. At the end of the day, your shoppers have to line up in front of your support team to portray their feelings. So, it is vital and essential that you must keep your agents and executives happy first, as the whole show will depend on them and their performance.
78% of shoppers believe happy service can only be possible with good agents and representatives. Source: The Cost of Poor Customer Service.
[READ ALSO: How you can shop on a budget this Christmas season]
Since it will be a known fact that the holiday period will see a substantial rise in customer complaints and feedback, you have to provide that extra incentive to your agents as well. Just take care of them, think about their working hours during the peak time, let them have the extra breaks, award them, pat their backs when they deserve it and bestow them with holiday bonuses. Do anything just to keep your team motivated and happy so that, in turn, they provide your shoppers with the best support.
Remember, they are giving up their holidays just to make sure that your company provides that all-important support during the peak period, thus they are indirectly increasing your brand reputation.
