The holiday season is approaching fast and most retail companies are preparing now for “all hands on deck” to handle their peak customer traffic, from contact centers, online, and in brick-and-mortar stores. With the drastic increase in purchases comes the need for increased customer service agents, especially in contact centers.
Call center outsourcing often makes sense to meet peak capacity constraints, but also the need to deliver a quality customer experience is more critical than ever as customers are not as loyal as they once were. The call center agents answering your inbound calls need to reflect the image and culture of your retail company. They need to be consistent on calls and provide a high-quality customer experience when people have questions regarding products and services, especially during the holidays when time is more valuable than ever.
Agents may need to be quick and efficient with their support, but they also need to be patient and show empathy during a hectic time for both customer and company. An example scenario of an inbound call during the holiday season would be a customer ordering a product online, but it’s been weeks and they still haven’t received it.
Christmas is getting close and there are many things that need to be done before the day arrives, so the customer calls the company in a stressed-out state hoping to get answers. The last thing that person needs is an agent giving robotic responses based only on a strict script with little or no empathy or concern in their voice.
The top-performing outsource call centers that focus on the retail industry focus on hiring agents that are naturally geared toward relating to people and making emotional connections and train them vigorously on the right strategies while empowering the agents with the freedom to go off-script when necessary. At the same time, these contact centers also train their agents to increase revenue by recognizing the right opportunity to up-sell whenever possible to increase the average order value.
Empathy and emotion, in general, can be great traits in making a positive connection with the customer that can help agents exceed in generating more sales. The more a customer feels an emotional connection with a contact center agent, the more likely they’ll be to maintain an open mind towards hearing product and service offers.
Need a retail call center outsourcing company to deliver more sales and customer service? We can help!
Outsource Consultants are call center experts with over 25 years of outsourcing industry experience who have spent thousands of hours vetting and analyzing the strengths and specializations of the industry-leading retail outsource call center vendors. If you’re considering retail call center outsourcing, simply call 888-766-4482 or request a free call center cost proposal today and we’ll help you find the solution that best fits your exact requirements.
