Tackling Seasonal Customer Service Challenges
Every season has its good points and its challenges, especially in the customer service industry. Here are some tips to help your business cope with seasonal customer service challenges that may arise.
Seasonal slumps
Sometimes, business isn’t as ‘busy’ as you’d like it to be. While this can be a negative thing, it can also be a positive one for your customer service team. If you know there’s a particular time of year when you’ll be less busy, use the downtime to schedule employee training or have employee appreciation events.
You can also use the slower times to try new skills or even reorganize your customer service environment. Consider it your ‘spring cleaning’ period for customer service, if you like. Basically, slow periods are great for doing those things that never seem to get done at other times and they can be really helpful for your entire team.
Peak vacation times
You know the peak vacation times–they’re the times when it seems like everyone wants a day or a week off from work. These are usually around the holidays and in the summer, when many employees have children home from school.
Making sure you have enough coverage can be tricky when everyone wants to schedule vacation time, but you don’t have to be the mean boss who always says ‘no’ to those vacation requests. You can opt to bring in extra temporary employees, or you can use the services of a call centre to handle the work done by your missing staff. Either way, your employees get their much-deserved time off and your customers still get the help they need.
Busy times
Most businesses have certain times of year when they hit peak customer service numbers. It may be during the holidays or it could be a random period of time during the year, but the results are still the same–stress for your employees and aggravation for your customers.
To combat this, plan ahead. Know your peak customer service times and schedule enough staff to tackle all the calls that will inevitably come in. This is another time when you might want to consider buffing up your customer service team with additional employees.
Whatever your customer service challenge, Answer 365 can help. Call and chat with a friendly, knowledgeable staff member today.