After another tough year for all businesses, everyone deserves a break over the festive period. However, with a survey of 1,600 businesses from BT finding that a missed call loses a UK business on average a massive £1,2001, it’s clear that making sure you can enjoy the holidays without having to worry you’re missing essential business calls is incredibly difficult. Tim Morris is the MD at Cymphony, where they specialise in enquiry handling with a personal touch. Here’s his advice for business owners on how to take time off over the festive period whilst still impressing clients.

There’s no doubt that 2021 has been a sobering year for the majority of businesses across the UK. However, with 2022 just around the corner, it has never been more important for business owners to be able to step back and switch off over the festive period. Taking a break will help stop burnout, increase job satisfaction and improve productivity – all things required for business owners to pick themselves up and go full steam again in 2022. However, while you’re away from the office it’s important you don’t miss any important business enquiries, So, here’s my advice on how to take time off over the festive period whilst still delivering the best possible service to your clients.

Rota staff so everyone gets a break

Ensuring you and your team get a break is crucial to recharging the batteries after a torrid 2021. Not having time off over the festive period will cause low staff morale which ultimately will lead to an unhappy workplace and decreased productivity. A rota over the festive period means everyone gets time to switch off but also means that you have people to answer important calls from a designated hotline. You can share the workload between employees and management by simply forwarding your office line to one mobile. And remember, when potential clients are at the first enquiry stage, they often just move to the next option on the Google results list if no one answers the phone.

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Setting expectations with customers before Christmas Eve

Managing your customers’ expectations in the run-up to Christmas Eve is massively important to make sure customers don’t expect a service you simply can’t deliver when you’re enjoying your family feast. Provide a clear timeline of events from limited opening hours to on-call services. You can even provide last dates for certain activities to be completed before services resume in the new year. Communicating clearly and effectively when setting expectations with customers is vital. Trained call handling operators are a perfect way to ensure your customers know exactly what you can, and can’t, deliver over the holidays.

Choose a day in-between Christmas and new year to touch base

The last thing you need when taking a break over the festive period is the constant fear of what may meet you when get back into the office. Arranging a day in-between Christmas and the new year to touch base with your clients and colleagues will keep that dread at bay. It doesn’t even have to be a full day. Allocate a couple of hours to run through business-critical activities and contact clients with the shortest lead times on their negotiations or completions.

Touching base is an opportunity for you to get a well-rounded picture of the events that have taken place while you have been unwinding and recharging the batteries. It’s a golden opportunity to help you clear some tasks and identify important items to pick up on your first day back in the office. Most importantly, it means your attention is only diverted from spending time with your friends and loved ones for a few concentrated hours and not sporadically throughout the week.

Use a Live Agent web chat system that has real people behind it

It’s important for businesses to have someone who is qualified as an inbound communication specialist to be answering calls and messages over the festive period. AI-operated systems are impersonal and make agencies seem faceless, which when enquiring on huge spending decisions, isn’t how you want customers to perceive your business. Seventy-one per cent of consumers said they would be less likely to use a brand if they knew that brand didn’t have human agents to talk to3. This astonishing figure shows just how important it is for businesses to maintain a human touch as part of their communication, whether over the festive period or any other time.

In a recent report, half of the consumers surveyed believed that chatbots and virtual assistants make it harder to get issues resolved3. Yet another reason why you should at least consider a hybrid of personal touch combined with automation to support your online enquiries. At Cymphony, our call handlers and chat operators receive the very best training to deliver an easy, informative and, most importantly, tailored customer experience.

Train your team in the basics of call handling

Having a well-trained and informed call handler at the end of the phone will make your business more approachable. Having someone who understands the landscape of your business sector and the likely customer journeys your callers will go through, will make your business shine through the competition. When customers were asked about what they thought about AI in customer service, the top response was that it was ‘maddening’ – also in the top five responses were ‘impersonal’ and ‘superficial’3. Not words any business wants to be associated with.

A well-trained call handler navigates situations in a way a chatbot or automated system simply can’t. A human operator can respond appropriately to a caller’s tone, making sure your business comes across as welcoming, professional and caring.

 

1 BT Business Survey, 2014

2 Zoopla, 2020, Housing price growth close to three-year high

3 CGS, 2019, Customer Service Chatbot & Channels Survey

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