The holidays are nearly upon us again once more. As such it’s important to think about what this means for your business and the improvements that you should make to your model. Here are key issues that you should keep in mind.
Customer Support
There’s nothing customers hate more than a poor level of support. Whether you leave them on hold for hours at a time or you don’t hear their issues this is definitely going to be enough to earn you a rather nasty review. To handle this, you should make sure that you are training up your staff beforehand and ensure that they know the best ways to help customers rather than handle them.
If you are outsourcing, do provide a clear guide of how you want customer queries dealt with. It’s important to remember that customers will talk, particularly online. So, you can’t offer a solution to one client and then not give the same solution to another. Consistency is key here.
Aside from this, you might want to think about using technology to further support your customer response system. Automated systems do tend to get quite a bad rep. However, they can be helpful, particularly during the festive season when you’re dealing with a high volume of queries. A live chatbot added to your site could also be highly effective. Customers love this option and many prefer using a live chat rather than calling your business. It’s also a great way to get more leads.
Logistics
You might also want to think about your logistics service. You are probably outsourcing logistics in your business model and you’re not alone. A lot of companies are doing the exact same thing. The problem is that all logistics businesses aren’t providing the same high-quality service. If there is an issue with quality, it is going to reflect poorly on your company rather than the service you are using.
It’s always important to check the reviews of a solution like this. Ideally, you need to explore case studies and find out how they have helped other businesses in the past. You might want to think about contacting some of the businesses that have used the service too. However, it could be worth checking the reviews of their clients. The response from clients is often vastly different from the response from the company. Businesses are often completely unaware of issues with their logistics service. They might ultimately only care that they are getting a solution for a low cost.
Marketing
Finally, this year, it’s going to be more important than ever to ensure that your marketing is providing the right results. You can’t afford to give customers a reason why they shouldn’t buy your products and that includes not being able to find your business online. The right marketing campaign is going to help you stand out from the competition and get the right level of attention.
We hope this helps you understand some of the key areas of your business model that you do need to get right before the holiday season truly kicks into high gear.