The holiday times are always very exciting and the busiest for any brands out there. Along with bringing the great opportunity of capturing customers and increasing sales revenue, the holiday season also brings challenges to maintaining their business, especially their customer service department. Since customers are prowling around looking for things to buy, the biggest fear any brand has is going after their competitors. The increase in demand for products or services can test the service quality of your team and the system Hence, managing customer service during the holiday season requires you to conduct proper planning with the aim that the customer service experience is carried out effectively without impacting the quality.
Online Customer Service during the Holidays
The holiday seasons are the busiest, both for the customers and online businesses. It is the time for customers to buy gifts for their loved ones, take them out to eat good food, etc. Customers also get to enjoy a couple of good deals being offered by companies. Want to check them out? If you call Xfinity customer service right now, chances are you can find a good internet and television bundle deal. It is also the busiest time for brands dealing with the sales of their products and services and having to deal with the bulk of yearly sales.
During the holiday rush, online brands are flooded with more support queries, more orders, and more questions than any other time of the year. It can also lead to higher stress levels and there are likely to be some potentially frustrated customers.
This might sound pretty intimidating but brands can prepare and make a solid plan in advance to ensure that their customers have a good experience under the circumstances.
Managing Online Customer Service during the Holidays
Your answer to how to manage online customer service is right here for you to explore and will ensure holiday success for your online business.
Analyzing Data from Last Year. You can look through plans from the previous year; volume and type of customer interactions you received, most common pain points, what might have been lacking from your service, etc.
Having this kind of data on hand can help to formulate a plan for the upcoming holiday rush. Brands can improve in areas of online customer service where they struggled previously.
Communication Channels To Focus On. It is also essential to know which channel to be used as a conceivable method of contact. If there are too many channels and the brand has to juggle phone calls, live chat, social media, and emails simultaneously, it can impact their quality of service.
To tackle this during the holiday season, it would be a good idea for brands to consider which channel of communication they can focus on. Whichever channels are most commonly used by the brand’s customers will be the ones that brands need to work on for providing good service.
Keep Customers Informed. One way to lessen your customer’s frustration during holiday shopping is to inform them of any changes your brand will be making during the holidays. Brands need to let the customers know about that as early as possible. If you let them know, then the customers know what kind of changes to expect from your brand and as a result, minimize their frustration of feelings of hostility.
Update Content and Knowledge Base. Updating your content and knowledge base can also save customers the time and hassle of reaching out to your customer support. If there is information about your company’s products or services on the knowledge base, then you can use it to update answers to the most commonly asked questions.
To ensure that customers’ queries are all answered, you need to provide as much information as possible on the knowledge bases. It also needs to be constantly updated to ensure that there is no confusion among your customers.
Using Automation. When brands find themselves swamped with tasks over the holidays, then every second they work towards customers’ satisfaction will count. This is why brands need to make the most effective use of their time.
Creating an automated workflow will allow you to handle tasks automatically, i.e. letting you know when stocks are low. AI-driven chatbots can be used to deal with the most common questions asked by customers.
Final Thoughts
The holidays are when people are meant to feel merry, but that can be hard when the online customer service isn’t working as effectively for both the customers and online businesses. If brands prepare in advance by putting a plan in place, then they can work towards providing efficient online support.