Almost all businesses exhibit some kind of seasonal demand. In the travel industry, this wave will rise as soon as schools close and the weather warms up, while in other industries it will peak as winter approaches and the festive season of Christmas begins. This sudden surge in customer inquiries means we need to step out of our comfort zone if maintaining a high level of customer satisfaction is our goal. And this year, with wars on European borders, rising interest rates and rampant inflation creating an unprecedented level of disruption in all sectors, call volumes could rise instantly. But being prepared for the unexpected in customer service is not impossible for most organizations, with a little thought and good preparation.
back to basics
Keeping in mind that customers no longer resonate with the stock message of “unexpected call volume,” the first step to meeting peaks head-on is to revisit the basics. For companies with available resources, this means doubling down on hybrid work to increase staff availability during peak hours. You can plan to keep your agents at home to meet sudden spikes in demand.
Customers are no longer sympathetic to “unexpected call volume” messages.
Communicating with customers before they call is also essential to avoid demand. Managing the information flow is generally half the battle, saving the contact center time and money when an order confirmation text or email is sent.
Use omnichannel and self-service
It’s a mistake to think that customers always want to talk to agents. Often they simply want to spend the rest of their day seeking answers to their questions. Enabling customers to self-serve using their preferred communication channels reduces engagement times, improves resolution rates, and ultimately increases customer satisfaction. Omnichannel and self-service approaches are now seen as essential rather than optional services.
It’s a mistake to think that customers always want to talk to agents.
When organizations face high seasonal demand, artificial intelligence (AI) and natural language processing (NLP) services can further prevent agents from spending unnecessary time on calls. AI can answer phone calls, interact with customers to provide them with the information they need right away, or route them to the right agent to deal directly with their inquiries.
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Operating a knowledge management system is also one of the basic requirements, and it also benefits when new staff joins the team. We recommend that you have a dedicated Knowledge Manager to update this process to keep the information up to date and prevent further calls. During busy periods, it’s important to resolve customer inquiries in a timely manner, and teams with the latest and most accurate information will always achieve this faster than those without.
Join Cloud Contact Center
One of the biggest challenges in meeting seasonal demand is the infrastructure that must be put in place to manage it effectively. Scaling a contact center to handle peaks is impractical. This is because there will be idle and unproductive seats during normal demand periods. A new approach to managing temporary spikes in service volume comes from the idea of CCaaS (Contact Center as a Cloud Service).
One of the biggest challenges in meeting seasonal demand is the infrastructure that must be put in place to manage it effectively.
CCaaS means that your call center can automatically scale up and down in response to demand. As a subscription service, businesses pay only for the services they use, with no fixed costs.
CCaaS integrates seamlessly with all modern technologies such as ACD (automatic call delivery) and IVR, along with omnichannel support, analytics and reporting. Integration with other systems, such as customer relationship management (CRM) and enterprise resource planning (ERP), increases efficiency and gives agents access to the information they need to do their jobs effectively.
Managing service levels during the toughest times
There is no doubt that providing a consistently high level of customer service is difficult because of the peaks and valleys. Since customer service is often viewed as a cost center, optimizing capital allocation requires flexibility to scale up or down as peaks and troughs come and go, especially in the current uncertain climate. approach is better.
But using a combination of proactively communicating with customers, reaching out to them on the channels they actively use, and using AI to apply triage, the demand for customer service grows. It can solve many problems. Additional measures such as implementing robust knowledge management solutions and leveraging the flexibility of on-demand cloud solutions in conjunction with hybrid work provide a solid foundation for maintaining service levels during peak times.
