Typically, Christmas is a time when your permanent staff are slowing down and planning their summer holiday.   However, Christmas is also infamous for customer care centres to be at their busiest!   Last minutes demands or scheduling appointments while retailers dealing with product returns due to the wrong size, wrong colour or wrong delivery.

To retain those loyal customers and stay on top of things here are a few tips to keep your Business ticking along nicely so you can think about winding down.

Let them know

Keep customers informed via email marketing, website banners and social media platforms about your Christmas hours, public holidays and how best to reach your company should they need immediate help.  This keeps your customers from guessing a) where you are b) expected turnaround times for deliveries and c) how long a repair may take.  If customers know there is likely to be a longer-than-usual wait time, they won’t feel annoyed if it happens.

Keep on top of stock inventory

Look at previous years and see how much stock you’ll need for Christmas orders. It’s a bit of a guessing game but with every year businesses get better at anticipating how much they’ll need to meet customer demand without overdoing it. If your business is still in the infancy stage you may get it wrong or you may get it right – but one thing is for sure – you’ll learn a lot!

Train the team

Is there a Christmas offer? How long does it run for? What are the terms and conditions?  Make sure your staff are ‘on the same page’.  Staff meetings about Christmas craziness are essential as they bring problem areas to the fore and gives your team the confidence to go and talk to your customers. If you think your team would benefit from some specialised training, we can work with your existing team to achieve the best customer care results.

Should your business need more people at the ‘customer service coalface’ at this time of year, Corporate Connect offers unmatched call centre services to every type of business across New Zealand. Whether you need short-term or long-term support, we will tailor a solution that has you standing out from your competitors.

Furthermore, our customised reporting collects information from each point of contact and gives you a detailed report of calls made, talk time, abandoned calls, wait times and messages received.  Information like this offers priceless insights into how well a promotion went and how things can be improved.

Deal with it

Deal with complaints quickly and openly.  Don’t hope they will go away. They won’t.  They are likely to grow bigger and worsen if you choose to put your head in the sand!  Remember customers can complain via lots of channels these days – email, phone, Facebook, Twitter, via letter or Google reviews, so have a designated staff member or team responsible for this job so customers always feel ‘heard’.

Following these practical tips is sure to set your business on the right road to a great customer experience every time.  We offer more services than ever before – see how your business can thrive from our help.

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