The month of November officially kick-starts the holiday season across the U.S. It is not only because of Thanksgiving but also because of the two biggest sales of the year that occur in this month. I am talking about “Black Friday” and “Cyber Monday”. On these days, retailers and e-commerce store owners make a majority of their annual sales. Someone who has not witnessed the mob of customers outside malls on Black Friday morning cannot understand just how big a deal these days are.

It is not just a busy day for the staff that works in malls and retail outlets but also for those that work in their contact centers. If we talk about online stores, their call centers get rushed by an enormous increase in call volumes by customers who want to place orders, have placed orders or want to change their orders. These days are so much different than other normal days at your call center that there needs to be special preparation made well in advance to ensure proper productivity during this holiday season.

Below are some steps that contact centers can take to better prepare themselves for Cyber Monday/Black Friday –

Increase Head-count

Since the call volumes are going to increase, it makes perfect sense to increase the number of your contact center team. Even if it will be on a temporary basis, it will really give you the extra manpower needed to handle the sudden increase in calls and chat requests from customers. If we are to take inspiration from the retail sector, every year during the holiday season retail stores hire extra staff on a temporary basis. It will not be a difficult task to find call center agents willing to work on a temporary basis.

Increase Number of Service Hours

Unless you were already offering 24/7 customer support through your call center, you need to extend service hours. By this, I mean that if on an average day your helpline numbers are available from 9 am to 6 pm, on days like Black Friday you can extend it to 8 pm or 9 pm. The added number of staff members will make this process easier. Similarly, you can increase service days by having a team work on the weekends to accommodate customers that need support on the weekends.

Integrate Your Calling with a CRM

Whether you generally use a CRM to manage your caller information or not, during the holiday season, you are going to need to integrate a CRM with your process to handle the sheer volume of customer information that has to be recorded and kept for future reference. If you are already using a CRM, check its features and capabilities to know whether an upgrade is needed or not.

Get an Additional Helpline Number

To deal with the added calls that come from specifically Black Friday and Cyber Monday customers, you can add a new helpline number. This way, your existing customer calls do not get mixed up with these Black Friday sales customers. Call routing becomes easy and teams can be allocated better to handle the changing flow of call volumes.

Conclusion

The holiday season brings with it a boost in the shopping, both online and offline. It is not just a matter of these two days but the entire season that culminates with the coming of the new year. This is the season where customers demand not just the best service but the best customer service as well. With the help of excellent call center services, your business will be ready for this upcoming holiday season frenzy.