The holiday season is an opportunity to stand out from the crowd, full of fun opportunities to impress your customers with just how reliable and dependable your business can be. Here are some great ways to make sure that your service stays consistent over the holidays.
Automation is your best friend
Automation is not meant to replace human beings, rather it adds to their experiences. It solves small problems so your staff can spend their time on the big ones. Chances are that with the Christmas holidays rolling around, you are preparing yourself for some winter holiday camps.
Need a few more feet on the ground? Set up any additional promotional campaigns you have planned to run in advance for consistency and professionalism.
Automated email campaigns can also be set using specific triggers. These can help you keep customers abreast if there is a problem (fingers crossed there isn’t) and provide them with enough information that they feel included. The more information a customer has, the less they’ll feel neglected and hopefully, that will keep their spirits up!
Help your customers help themselves
A lot of customers only feel the need to speak to someone over the holidays when their needs aren’t met. Others just need help so they can help themselves. Make sure you have a streamlined booking management system integrated into your website.
Your customers should be able to book the available kit and pay for sessions using a variety of payment methods and schemes. And if you lose them in the sale? You can track those baskets and possibly offer them other options to help clinch that sale.
Don’t have a list of FAQs on your website already? Try using the data you’ve picked up from other holiday seasons. Barring that, your team will have a host of memories from your previous holidays to help you put one together. If all else fails, put some basic information about your sessions, the differences between them and links to booking.
Manage your customers’ expectations
In theory your customers are all rocket scientists who are well aware that you aren’t a 24 hour bot running on Redbull. Just in case there is some confusion there make sure you make it clear to your customers what your business hours are over the holidays. Set auto-replies that are explicit about your office hours and state how long they may have to wait to receive a response.
Your data from previous years can also serve you very nicely here. Go over the types of questions you have received in recent years as well as any data you have about the levels of bookings.
It might be that a few of your regular patrons cut it right to the wire to book or there are some common needs such as extra wraparound care. Use this information to do a combination of directing them to your FAQs or adding them to auto-reply emails.
Troubleshooting is for AFTER the holiday period
The holiday period is not time for troubleshooting either. That time comes after the period is done and you can take stock. When you have an influx of customer communications, it’s important that the quality of your service doesn’t lag but nor does your patience. So, it’s all hands on deck to prepare for the period!
For a streamlined platform that can manage your bookings, register, and reduce your administrative stress, check out the Coordinate Sport package and contact our team for a demo!
