With World Cup fever gripping the nation and the key England game looming later this evening, many businesses are facing the headache of absent staff or late arrivals due to employees wishing to watch the game. Which begs the question: how will the World Cup impact on customer service?
Promising to be the most technologically advanced tournament to-date, with new goal-line technology and everything from 4D Arrowbed football boot insoles to 4G coverage set to improve the football fans viewing experience. However, many businesses may be left struggling to match this experience from a customer service perspective due to a lack of integrated technology.
Managing surges in enquiries
Retailers can be expected to see a boost in sales during the World Cup, with large screen TV’s and fridges amongst the top purchases. Online orders and last minute buys will result in an increase in customers contacting retailers with questions on delivery dates, installation and support issues. Those retailers that can offer customers web self-service via an intelligent FAQ search tool or live chat software will be better positioned to handle these spikes in customer contact, reducing levels of inbound calls or e-mails to their contact centre.
Supporting customers when staff are absent
With the timing of matches scheduled to kick off in the afternoon and evening in the UK, many retailers who have staff working evenings, nights or weekends will feel the impact of staff either calling in sick or wanting to take holiday. It is during such events that contact centres rely on the right technology being in place to support staff so that they are able to respond to customers as quickly and efficiently as possible. A contact centre knowledge-base, pre-populated with a regularly up-dated set of answers to common questions on products and services, will help to not only speed up agents response times but to ensure consistent answers are given to customers.
Consistent cross channel experience
The increase in usage of mobile devices will see brands heavily interacting with customers via online competitions, betting, promotional offers and interactive games. On the flip side, customers will also come to expect this same level of instant communication when they have a customer service enquiry. Those brands that have a multi-channel customer service strategy in place will be able to offer customers the same level of service across phone, web, e-mail, mobile and social channels.
With huge increases in sales due to the World Cup and the resulting surge in customer contact to businesses, the winners will be those that have put a centralised customer service strategy in place to handle spikes in customer enquiries, often outside of traditional work hours. And if your business provides a winning customer service, your customers will become the biggest champions of your brand.
