Find an Answering Service That Delivers Holiday Cheer to Your Customers

In 2015, Americans spent approximately $630 billion dollars during the holiday shopping season. The holiday rush begins with Black Friday, Small Business Saturday and Cyber Monday, but 67% of consumers admit to starting their holiday shopping in December. 

With shopping statistics like these, it’s no wonder business owners see a dramatic spike in sales the last month of the year. To get a piece of this multibillion dollar pie, you have to make customer service your number one priority. Hire a virtual customer service team to help provide your shoppers with a memorable holiday experience.    

Here are some tips to help you find an answering service that delivers 24/7 assistance that’ll make holiday shopping less stressful for you and your customers. 

Start a 24-Hour Customer Service Hotline

Many holiday shoppers like to conduct a certain amount of research before committing to a purchase. Your website is going to be an excellent tool to help shoppers with their questions; providing a great user experience. However, some of your stressed-out shoppers prefer a great human experience.

Invite your customers to call your business 24 hours a day, 7 days a week, 365 days a year for assistance. This extra special attention will assure your customers that their satisfaction is your number one priority.

Here are examples of FAQs that can be answered on your behalf during the holiday rush: 

• • What day will I receive my product if I order it today?
• • Can you overnight my package? If yes, how much will the rush order cost me?
• • Do you offer giftwrapping services?
• • Can you engrave my product or customize my order?
• • Are you open on Christmas Eve? Are you open on Christmas Day?
• • What are your store hours for New Year’s Eve?
• • What is your refund policy?

Go out of your way to make buying your product or service as easy as possible. A 24-hour customer service hotline will give you the support you need to survive this busy holiday season.   

Question to Ask the Cell Center: Can I customize my account? How do you train the team that answers my customers’ frequently asked questions? Are you open 24/7/365? Do you employ an in-house programmer?

Increasing Your Customers’ Satisfaction Levels

What do your customers expect from your business this holiday season? They want you to be helpful, informative, attentive, available and flexible. Spread holiday cheer by keeping communication open with your customers and committing to constant assistance.  

A live answering service will address these common problems that businesses are faced with each holiday season.

• • Long hold times will frustrate your customers.   

“67% of customers hang up on a phone connection out of frustration they could not talk to a real person and 75% of customers believe it takes too long to reach a live agent.” Outsourcing your calls to a virtual answering service gives you ample phone coverage during the busy shopping season. 

• • A slow website will turn off your customers.  

Don’t miss out on business if your website or shopping cart software runs slower because of an increase in traffic. A sophisticated answering service will be able to conveniently process your customers’ holiday orders and credit card payments over the telephone.

• • A website crash can make your customers uneasy. 

During the holiday season your customers want to be able to check the status of their orders; log into their shopping carts; and make their final purchases in time for Christmas. If your website crashes, your customers will blow up your phone lines with frantic calls. A 24-hour hotline will be able assist your customers if your website cannot.

• • If you don’t have a complaint department, your customers will light up the internet.  

With all the stress surrounding such a busy holiday, your business is vulnerable to making mistakes. A holiday answering service can attend to any complaints your customers have about the quality of your product or service. If you don’t give your customers an option to call you about their negative experience, they’re going to badmouth you on every review site they can get a hold of. Expert agents will be able to use caller control, compassion and empathy to make your customers feel special.    

An answering service that delivers elite customer service through highly trained agents and state of the art technology will dramatically increase your brand’s reputation.     

Questions to Ask the Call Center: Do you have adequate phone coverage to handle my business’s high-call volumes? What are your average hold times during the holidays? Can you process credit card telephone orders? Can you provide me with a 1-800 phone number? Have you recently won any awards for your customer service?

Focus on Fulfilling Orders With No Distractions 

The busy holiday season will keep you and your staff working long hours to fulfill your customers’ orders. Imagine what your in-house team could achieve if they didn’t have to deal with a telephone that is constantly ringing. Forwarding your incoming calls to a seasonal answering service will: 

• • Give you the freedom to work on revenue generating tasks;
• • Eliminate distractions to improve your in-house team’s productivity;
• • Allow your customer service to be handled by award winning agents;
• • Organize your incoming and outgoing communication during the busy season.

It’s great that your business is cashing in on the holiday spending craze, but your staff is going to have to work harder under extreme pressure. Give your customers great service and your employees a break from the phones to keep the holidays more cheerful and less chaotic.   

Questions to Ask the Call Center: How do you handle VIP calls and emergency situations? Are you able to transfer a live caller to my on-call employee? How do you deliver phone messages? Do you keep a log of phone calls my business receives during the holidays?      

Give Our Answering Service a Try!

Get a handle on your busiest time of year by hiring an answering service that deliversoutstanding customer service to your busy shoppers. Here at A Courteous Communications, our elite group of helpdesk operators can help your business by providing: 

• • 24-Hour Phone Coverage During Holiday Peak Season
• • Order and Payment Processing Services
• • Award Winning Customer Service and Assistance
• • Customized Support and Direct Training on All Accounts
• • Multilingual Answering Services to Help with New Markets
• • A Friendly, Cheerful and Jolly Disposition

Call us today at 1-800-785-6161 to speak with an account specialist or shoot us an email to discuss your business’s specific needs.