‘Tis the season when people scramble to buy gifts, plane tickets, vacations, and lots of food. These people, of course, would include you and your customer support service team.
Now, you might be asking yourself, “How would I make my team and my customers happy during this time of year?”
Luckily, there are ways to strike the right balance between allowing your team to enjoy the holidays and serving your most loyal customers:
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Plan a Holiday Schedule for Your Team
Many of your team members will want to take a few days off during the holidays. It’s crucial that you lay out a plan for who will be manning their stations while the others are celebrating. Introducing this plan early on allows your team to adjust their holiday plans as well.
If your team is shorthanded for the holidays, boost your members’ adaptability to the workload by cross-training them. For instance, you can train several email support agents to help assist customers through live chat.
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Entice Your Team with Better Compensation
By offering compensation, you can encourage some of your team members to work on the holidays. Flexible schedules, work-from-home arrangements, and bonus leave credits after the holidays can also work.
Alternatively, you can arrange a party or some office activity for your team, so they can still experience the holiday fun.
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Introduce a Priority System for Requests
Processing tickets, depending on urgency, enables your customer service team to work more efficiently. If you already have a holiday prioritization strategy for your business, review the system before implementing it. Ensure everyone reporting to work during the holidays is aware of the processes they will be following.
But what if your customer care team is understaffed during the holidays? Implement an escalation plan where your product experts can offer technical advice in case your frontlines couldn’t solve problems right away.
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Provide Multichannel Support
Engaging with your customers during the holidays isn’t just limited to talking to them over the phone or via email. It’s best to be easily accessible to your customers, which means going where they are for quick and easy inquiries and post-sale support.
Aside from the phone, invest in technologies and processes that make your brand available via social media, live chat, SMS, or your app. These modes of customer support work even when some of your team members are working from home.
A study conducted by Twitter claims that 64% of consumers would rather seek assistance from a brand through social media than call them. And those who did receive help online are more likely to pay more for the company’s products and services than look at options from competitors.
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Partner with a Trusted Customer Service Provider
Entrusting your customer service to a trusted third-party provider will ensure your customer’s needs are met. Whether it’s helping child-lock a new tablet or offering designs for a holiday cupcake box, a truly reliable outsourcing customer service provider can do the job.
These days, it’s considered best practice for businesses to always be accessible. This means getting 24/7 multichannel customer support. It’s a big plus if your business can cater to customers speaking various languages.
When it comes to multilingual, multichannel customer support, Open Access BPO has the business solutions, proven processes, and over a decade of experience to be your brand’s ally. We provide hyper-customized services to make your operations more efficient, no matter what industry you belong to.
