For many retailers, peak season can financially make or break their year. From the holiday rush to shopping events like Black Friday and Cyber Monday (BFCM), it's a time when customer service is critical for success.
Today's customers require a high level of service when purchasing from a company. However, during peak season, consumers place a higher demand on organizations to deliver a seamless shopping experience.
Customers expect fast, personalized service this time of the year, and how you manage their needs during peak season could be the key to securing repeat buyers. The following sections will look at the importance of retail customer service during peak season and outline five strategies to help improve it throughout one of the busiest times of the year.
How important is customer service during peak season?
Since peak season is the busiest time of the year for many retailers, there is an added focus on logistics, inventory and marketing. However, customer service is one of the most important elements of maximizing returns during the last couple of months of the year.
According to a recent survey, 86% of consumers are willing to switch brands because another company will provide a better customer service experience.
With higher customer volumes, the potential for errors, delays and out-of-stock items increases, making it more likely for shoppers to experience frustrations. How your organization handles these pivotal situations can be the difference between creating a life-long customer or handing them over to a competitor.
Retail customer service strategies to maximize peak season opportunities
Most organizations have the foundation needed to deliver high-quality customer service. However, the added pressure of hundreds of peak-season shoppers can create strain throughout the process and lower the overall customer experience.
Below are five strategies your team can preemptively add to ensure customers have a good buying experience.
1. Streamline in-store and online communication
Customer communication is more complex than being polite to buyers throughout the purchasing process. Consumers also want communication flexibility where they can browse for items online and purchase in-store or check in-store availability for items online before heading out to shop.
During peak season, having this fluidity between channels becomes even more crucial. If inconsistencies exist between what's available online and what's in-store, customers can quickly become frustrated. The combination of inaccuracies with long hold times or delayed email responses will often result in a poor customer experience.
One of the best ways to avoid this scenario is to provide seamless communication between all your platforms, online and at brick-and-mortar locations. Instead of waiting until peak season, continuously monitor and test your channels to ensure the real-time inventory data is always accurate.
2. Train and empower your staff
Even as the buying journey has shifted to more of a digital experience, people are still at the heart of great customer service. When traffic surges and tempers run high during peak season, having a well-trained and empowered staff can make all the difference. Customers expect employees to handle their concerns quickly and efficiently, but they also appreciate it when staff empathizes with their situation. These added expectations mean that organizations must equip employees with the ability to resolve issues on the spot without escalating every problem to a manager.
Through proper training on product knowledge, company policies and handling high-pressure situations, employees often find the confidence to take initiative when necessary and create memorable customer interactions.
3. Optimize inventory management for quick problem resolution
Inventory issues impact customers and retailers alike during peak season. Since consumers often shop for time-sensitive needs, such as gifts, encountering out-of-stock items around the holidays can lead to frustration and lost sales.
It's up to organizations to utilize inventory planning tools and analytics to predict inventory demand. However, even the best software and inventory management systems can't always provide 100% accurate forecasts, so retailers need reliable ways to mitigate inventory problems.
Below are a few tactics your team can use to help customers when inventory issues pop up:
- Utilize real-time inventory management systems to avoid stock discrepancies
- Suggest similar products if the target item is out of stock
- Offer direct-to-consumer shipping options from warehouses
4. Offer flexible and fast returns or exchanges
Every organization experiences returns, especially during the holiday season when many purchases are gifts. Having a clear, flexible, and hassle-free return policy can be the deciding factor for customers when choosing where to shop.
Businesses looking to create a customer-friendly holiday returns policy should offer options for how and where buyers can make returns, including:
- In-store
- Curbside
- By mail
- Third-party location
Along with return flexibility, having multiple locations will help improve the speed of the return process, too. The quicker and easier the return process, the more likely a customer is to shop with you again once the rush of the holidays is over.
5. Offer proactive customer support
Instead of waiting for customers to contact your team with issues, anticipate their needs by offering proactive customer support. Depending on the types of products your company sells, offering information, updates or solutions before customers realize they need them can help enhance the overall experience.
If proactive customer support is something new to your organization, don't worry; there are several small steps you can take to stay ahead of your customer's needs, including:
- Sending order status updates
- Communicating shipping delay notifications
- Creating personalized emails to remind customers of important deadlines like return windows
Adding the extra layer of communication helps develop trust and brand loyalty during the chaos of peak season.
Enhance peak season customer service with Cart.com
Peak season can feel overwhelming, but it can be a valuable time of year with the right customer service strategies. Streamlining communication, empowering your staff and focusing on the journey will help ensure a seamless, stress-free shopping experience for your customers
If you're worried about managing the influx of demand and inventory, working with a strategic partner like Cart.com can help. Cart.com combines best-in-class fulfillment software with a team of experienced supply chain professionals to help organizations enhance their customer experience.
Moreover, our highly-rated customer engagement team combines technology and live agents to help brands excel at customer service and communication. Contact our team today to learn how we can help improve brand loyalty and the customer experience through a consumer-centric approach.
