Your marketing plan is being rolled out, your shipping could not be any faster and your limited edition festive packaging has just arrived. No matter how flawlessly all of these work together, if you don’t know how to efficiently handle customer support during the festive season, all your efforts could fall through the cracks.
Spend some time to work on a plan now so that you don’t have to feel overwhelmed later.
1. Organize your information
Write down:
- Your marketing strategy
- Any promotions
- Anticipated demand
- Average shipping times
- Contact person for different roles/departments
- FAQs
Make notes of any other special events happening or additional notes that people should be aware of. Once you’re happy with everything, share the document with the relevant parties.
This way interns or temporary team members won’t have to double-check every second question and it prevents customers from receiving any incorrect information.
2. List what could go wrong
A crisis is only as bad as you allow it to be. When you anticipate possible issues before they arise, you give everyone a chance to mentally and emotionally prepare. This is key to preventing a bad situation from getting worse.
Learn from the past and list any situations that could go wrong or cause more stress. Then, make a list of responses to provide to customers or work on a rough contingency plan.
Popular examples are:
- Running out of stock
- Delayed deliveries
- Lost packages
- Issues with third-parties
3. Spot areas of proactive support
1 pricing error, 1 delivery delay or 1 item being out of stock can result in 100s of messages. Pre-plan all responses and let customers know what’s happening before they notice it themselves and stress.
This proactive response from a business helps build trust with customers but it also prevents a high volume of messages pouring in all at once.
Not sure how to spot ways to be proactive? Take a look at any past issues and use that as a guide.
4. Make sure customers know how to contact you
A bulletproof plan means nothing if customers can’t actually reach you. Make sure customers know exactly to contact you by updating your contact page, email footers, FAQ page, social media information or by sending out an email with more information.
5. Update your FAQ page
Double-check that your FAQ page is up-to-date so that when customers use it to answer their questions, it can actually help them.
Take a look at what people are asking on social media, via email or phone and ensure that it’s on the list too
This not only helps the customer, but it also frees up time for you to focus on other areas of your business.
6. Outsource some help
Using all your resources to assist with the festive season rush seems like a great idea at first, but it takes manpower away from other areas of your business.
Make use of outsourced help for tasks like social media management, writing and managing email campaigns and updating your website.
You could spend a few hours doing this yourself, but that only leaves you with less time to do other tasks.
The holidays might be one of the busiest times of the year, but these tips can help you efficiently handle customer support during the festive season.
