Shoppers and busy bees seeking to check off everything on their to-do lists in the quickest way possible are in full swing during the holiday season. No one wants to spend hours on hold listening to dull phone recordings when they could be enjoying that time with their family and closest friends during this season. Effectively directing calls through calling systems under pressure is crucial to maintaining everyone’s satisfaction throughout this season.
Phone recordings that fail to take this into account risk having angry and unsatisfied customers. They may lose large amounts of business due to the fact that they can’t get to everyone or by losing customers in the hold line. The holiday season puts extra pressure on companies to reach and satisfy an increased number of consumers.
Professional recordings that do take this into account and employ strategies to reduce and simplify waiting times will find their customer satisfaction is increasing instead of decreasing this season.
During the holiday season, time is often of the utmost importance. Updating a customer on a regular basis about the current hold time frees them to put the phone on speaker and roll out a batch of sugar cookies while they are waiting.
Integrating special holiday messages can also be helpful as they remind the consumer that the company recognizes the importance of this season and values their customer’s time and business. A company could also gather heart-warming Christmas stories from current customers or play Christmas tunes during the hold time. This is an easy way to sprinkle a little joy into a consumer’s wait time.
Certain industries are at specific risks for increased client flow and decreased customer service during this season.
- Hotels/Vacation Spots: Many people find themselves away from home during the holidays, visiting family or taking a vacation. Updating holiday recordings would be helpful due to the large influx of calls they will have to take.
- Restaurants: Your host or hostess won’t able to handle every single call at their normal rate. Increased calls for making reservations and setting up large parties could frustrate the hold line and waiting times.
- Department Stores/Shopping Centers: Especially as the days slip by towards Christmas, calls about sales, prices, discounts, shopping hours and more will slam these businesses.
- Phone, Electricity, and Internet Service Providers: These businesses are notorious for painfully long hold times and consumers during this season will have less patience than ever. These services are necessary for communication with others, something which the need for only increases during this season. Calls to grandma, ordering a cake, and scouring the internet for recipes are all necessary to a happy holiday season.
Callers can strategically be navigated through wait times by using smart and efficient voice prompts and Message On Hold recordings. Restaurants could offer current wait-times and make automatic reservations through a series of voice prompts. This would free up the host to work with customers currently in the restaurant. Hotels could employ a system that prompts callers through the system to make room reservations and then directs them to an agent to confirm the reservation. The possibilities are endless!
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