Author:  Roger Sumner

I did quite a bit of shopping this holiday season. Happily, I can say that I was able to buy almost everything I needed online, from the comfort of my own home. Apparently, I wasn’t alone.

“Black Friday” is a concept that’s constantly talked about  – the day after Thanksgiving when U.S. consumers visit stores to start their Christmas shopping.  Over the past few years a new shopping phenomenon has developed in the U.S. “Cyber Monday” is the Monday after Thanksgiving; a time when hoards of American consumers go online to buy, buy, buy!

According to comScore, a company that measures the digital world, in 2007, Cyber Monday saw a 21 percent increase in online spending over 2006.  And, the spending activity on that one particular day was 84 percent higher than the average daily online spending totals during the previous four weeks.  What’s more, comScore  said, that as of December 30, nearly $28 billion was spent online during the 2007 shopping season.  According to the company, that was a 10 percent increase over 2006.

Online shopping is growing in popularity and will continue to do so over the coming years.  That means that more and more demands will be placed on your contact center as consumers look to your agents, instead of in-store retail associates, for support.  How did your organization perform in 2007? And more importantly, how did your performance during the 2007 holiday season impact your business?
   
Now’s the time for you to reflect on what your center did right in 2007 and correct what you did wrong. Doing so will help your organization have a happier new year. 

Here are some things to consider:

• Was your organization able to quickly respond to your customers? Enhancing the Frequently Asked Questions section of your web site and improving other self-service capabilities will give your customers the tools they need to help themselves with simple inquiries, giving your agents extra time to help customers with more difficult issues. 
• Were your customers able to easily reach the right agents with the right skill sets?  If not, perhaps it’s time for you to evaluate and modify call flows.  Or, maybe you were inadequately staffed? If the latter, 2008 may be the year to add or increase the number of home-based agents employed by your contact center.  Workforce management applications can help you determine appropriate staffing levels with agents with the right skills, based on historical and real-time interaction volumes.
• When customers reached your organization, were your agents ready to help them?  Your agents may not have had all the necessary information at their fingertips to access previous interactions via various communication channels – voice, e-mail, and interactive Web chat. Perhaps its time for you to start replacing your standalone or integrated systems and move toward a unified approach.

Every interaction counts, so your organization needs to perform well during slow, moderate and busy times. Are you ready to make some changes?

This entry was posted on Wednesday, January 9th, 2008 at 11:22 am and is filed under Customer Service/Consumer Demands, Performance Optimization. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.