Ramping up for the holidays: How to excel at handling higher customer service demands

Today’s consumers have an overwhelming amount of choice in the marketplace. They’re looking for quick, courteous and personalized customer service as a way to differentiate one company, product or service from the next — and there’s no time like the busy holiday season for them to flex their purchasing power.

Deloitte’s annual holiday retail forecast expects seasonal retail sales to increase between 7% and 9% in 2021, totalling $1.28 to $1.3 trillion during the November to January timeframe. At the same time, research from Stephen Hyken, a customer experience (CX) expert, found that 52% of Americans will pay more for a product or service if they know they will receive great customer service.

Of course, successfully meeting customers’ service expectations is challenging year-round, and these challenges exist in many scenarios beyond the winter holidays. But there are essential lessons to learn from holiday crunch time about how to effectively ramp up — and gracefully ramp down — customer service efforts to meet higher-than-usual demand.

Have a plan for hiring up

From retailers, to travel and hospitality businesses, to popular consumer technology companies and beyond, the holiday season requires rapidly ramping up customer service efforts to meet market demand and facilitate business growth.

The answer may seem as simple as hiring more people, but companies can’t just onboard a slew of new customer service representatives without careful consideration. It’s crucial that the service customers receive during ramp periods meshes nicely with the service they’ve come to expect from a brand in quieter times.

Attracting great talent starts with the job description, which should be clear and concise, detailing exactly what new hires will be doing and why that work matters. It is also important to be transparent about day-to-day activities and how they tie into your company’s overall mission.

To further connect new hires to the company’s mission, your strategy for seasonal hiring should include leveraging corporate social responsibility (CSR) initiatives. A company’s efforts to support their local community, charities and the environment can become a vehicle for finding employees that fit your brand.

From nesting to production

Finding the right agents is only the beginning. Companies must also be prepared to train them to handle time-sensitive inquiries while simultaneously serving as an ambassador for the brand.

In an outsourced environment, new hire training offers a brief but critical opportunity to get new team members up to speed. It’s important to help them develop a feel for your culture, and even more importantly, a feel for the culture of the client that they are supporting.

Once they’re immersed in the brand and knowledgeable about a company’s products, new team members go through a “nesting” process designed to improve their proficiency with handling customer inquiries. In a contact center, this is where they go from training to actually learning how to do the job side-by-side with a team leader or subject matter expert. This is a collaborative process and agents can really benefit from the coaching they receive in this pre-production floor phase.

New team members need time to familiarize themselves with the products they’re supporting and hone their skills before they transition to production. For clients in need of temporary workers, TELUS International often narrows the scope of the role to enable quicker ramping. For example, agents may only focus on sales or tech support during a rush, then “up-skill” later on.

Boost agent engagement

With a team in place to effectively manage customer service demand, companies are left with a new dilemma: How to keep staff motivated throughout the holiday season.

To build brand buy-in, companies should explain their business objectives, along with how much leeway their agents have with the script. Next, conduct regular team huddles so agents have an opportunity to ask questions, propose suggestions or air grievances.

To further boost engagement, consider offering rewards based on the quality of an agent’s follow-up customer surveys, or on internal performance feedback. Rewards could vary from physical prizes — like company swag, tickets to events, or even tech gadgets — to intangible rewards like additional time-off. Whatever reward program you implement, just be sure it fits with your company’s culture.

Have a plan for ramping down

As they say, what goes up must come down. Not all companies will retain all of their seasonal talent, so planning a ramp-down becomes another important initiative. Above all, it’s important to analyze call data related to volume and timing to ensure that a reduction in staff doesn’t negatively impact the overall customer experience after a busy period.

Many companies may also choose to re-deploy customer service team members to other functions, and for CX partners like TELUS International, to other accounts. Even if seasonal workers only stick around on a temporary basis, they can have a lasting effect on your customers’ perception of your business and brand.