Holiday traditions are inevitable, and so are the endless articles and blogs with advice on how to prepare your contact center for the spike in activity. Virtually every industry experiences seasonal spikes, but for retail this is the big one!

Even though there is advice everywhere from vendors, industry experts, authors, and psychics (and even your aunt Mary, who brags at Thanksgiving that she has already completed all her shopping), many businesses still find themselves unprepared.

Sticking with the true holiday spirit, it is better to give than to receive. So here are four questions to consider when preparing your contact center for the holidays. Is this an all inclusive list? No. However, I think if you pay attention to these areas, your retail contact center will be more prepared for what should be a happy, successful, and (ideally) profitable season.

1. Who’s going to answer the call?

Or web chat, SMS, text, email, social media request etc.? And what if a live agent is not available?

This is where intelligent self-service can save you time, money, and the risk of your customers going to the competition. And your customers are looking to help themselves with 69% of consumers trying to solve issues on their own (Zendesk).

Intelligent AI-based self-service is just that — intelligent. Based on the question posed by your customer over chat or voice, the bot searches for and finds the right information to help them. And if the information is not quite right or the bot can’t answer the question, they can politely transfer to a live agent, with the proper expertise and information to help. Nice and simple!

2. So, who IS going to answer the call?

I just finished telling you about how intelligent self-service can help your customers solve issues on their own. So where did that call end up? With an agent for more help with a complex question. Maybe a little counterintuitive, but that brings us to the question of staffing. Not too many agents or two few agents, just the right amount.

With the right reporting and workforce management solutions in place, you can clearly see agent activity, identify peaks and valleys of activity, and accurately forecast and schedule the right amount of agents to be available as needed. But what about a sudden spike or drop in the need for agent assistance? What if you’re stuck with too many or too few contact center agents? This is where a cloud-based solution can save the day, save you money, and save you from losing customers to the competition.

With the advent of cloud-based contact centers, and the unfortunate impact of Covid, retailers realized that agents do not need to be in a centralized location. And in the long term, contact center leaders anticipate a hybrid work environment with 53% of agents working in office and 47% working remotely (8x8).

Remote work has opened up opportunities for stay at home moms and dads, retirees and anyone looking for some part-time work to reenter the workforce and earn an average salary of $34,854 annually. Home-based agents can be on call and asked to come online at a moment’s notice to help when unpredicted spikes in activity increase call queues, and asked to log off as soon as things ease up. Now rightsizing your staff is at your contact center managers fingertips.

3. Can I call you back later?

Okay, so you have intelligent self-service in place. Your reporting and workforce management solutions told you how many agents are the right amount of agents to have online throughout the day. And yet, you still have customers in queue waiting to talk to an agent.

What do you do?

Offer to call them back when someone is available.

It sounds so simple, however, this option is often overlooked. I personally love this feature when contacting a company. Rather than sit idly by listening to what I am sure is very entertaining hold music, I can go about my day. And then, when it’s time, a call comes in from an agent who knows why I was calling and is ready to help.

4. Are you ready?

The last question I have for you is a simple one: is your retail business ready?

From taking a look at the advantages of intelligent self-service to learning how you can leverage the right tools for staffing your contact center and calling back your customers when they don’t want to wait—these are just a few ideas to help you provide your customers with the highest quality customer experiences they deserve. Wouldn't that be a great gift during the upcoming season of giving?

Next steps

To learn more about how retailers are taking advantage of 8x8 solutions, take a look at these customer stories. Also, to learn more about how you can leverage 8x8 download the Retail Solution Brief. Don't forget to check our 8 Contact Center Holiday Planning Ideas.