Experience Guide for a Successful 2010 Holiday Season

Let’s face it, this is the most important season for retailers and ecommerce companies – for most, it will make or break their fiscal year. But the reality is that for many retail and ecommerce vendors more emphasis is placed on correctly stocking the shelves, rather than taking stock of what customer service issues you need to be prepared for during the holiday season (and even after the holidays).

With that in mind, I have put together a list of my top tips and tricks to help retailers make the holiday season as successful as possible, for both the customer and the customer service team.

The list below is not just about keeping customers happy, but also about driving the bottom line. As RightNow discovered after completing its 5^th annual Customer Experience Impact Report (see full report here), 85% of consumers would be willing to pay anywhere from 5-25% more over the standard price of a good or service to ensure a great customer experience, and 40% have started purchasing from a competitive brand simply because of their reputation for great service.

Customer Experience Guide for a Successful 2010 Holiday Season:

• Help customers help themselves – implement a strong self-service strategy. This is extremely important for retailers and ecommerce vendors. If you’re not updating FAQ’s on a daily basis and fine tuning your knowledge foundation regularly, the call center will experience higher volumes of traffic, eating up precious time for agents to resolve more technical/significant customer service issues. 
• Communicate, communicate, communicate – The number one inbound customer service request over the holiday season is “where are all the gifts I ordered?” Fear and concern about order status, have gifts been shipped, is something in or out of stock, can cripple a customer service center and leave your customers wary about on-time delivery (and trust in a brand). Have a plan in place to over communicate with the customer the status of their order (on a daily basis if needed), don’t leave them guessing, or they will call.
• Mobile support is a must: Supporting all channels is vital, but as we see the rise in smartphone/tablet shopping rapidly rising, managing to provide the same user experience via the mobile channel is paramount. Can customer chat with a live customer service agent through their mobile device? Can customers access your FAQ page? Does the mobile interface look and feel like if they were browsing on a PC? 
• Implement tools to monitor the social stratosphere: What are people saying about the products/services? Regardless if it’s positive or negative, organizations need to utilize the knowledge about what people are saying to drive that knowledge to the proper audience (sales, marketing, customer service, and finally, other customers). Remember, the smartest people about a product are not the ones who manufactured it, but the ones who are actually using it – so make sure you monitor what the users are saying and incorporate this information into the company’s own support system.
• Don’t forget you have a brand. You must make sure that every one of your messages and interactions is branded, regardless of the channel. This is what I call the lowest common denominator. Understand if your interactions with customers are generally great, with the exception of one particular area (whether it’s delivery, installation, post purchase support, etc) that singular substandard experience is what the customer will remember – and associate with your brand (know matter how great all the other experiences have been). So focus on delivering the highest brand experience at each and every interaction and touch point, ensuring that the overall brand message gets delivered.
• Finaly, don’t forget about after the holidays! Of course people will make returns, but are you prepared to analyze all of your customer service data to help make next year a greater success?  What was the average customer’s feedback, experiences, complaints? Understanding trends through data will help you identify the customer lifecycle as it relates specifically to your brand (and eventually allowing your business to better serve your customers).