Snow day should not equal icy customer support

Maintaining high levels of support

The severe weather and storms this year has created havoc throughout the UK. Heavy snow not only had some commuters spending hours in their vehicles, or having to be rescued, train, flight and bus cancellations has resulted in an unprecedented surge in commuter enquiries. And with further weather warnings being issued by the Met Office, the increased demand on customer service departments is set to continue.

And it’s not only travel updates required by commuters. With staff unable to commute to work, some businesses are struggling to operate efficiently. The convenience of our always ‘on’ online world has changed the way in which we interact with businesses as we expect to be able to communicate with them over multiple channels when we want to.

With the rapid rise in the use of mobile devices, 24/7 support is within reach to those businesses eager to achieve operational efficiency, by utilising digital channels such as Virtual Agents, web chat or web self-service, especially during unexpected circumstances.

Digital channels allow businesses to maintain high levels of service during peak and off-peak times. Web self-service options and Virtual Agents don’t get snowed in. And kudos to those using web chat via agents working from home – an often-overlooked advantage of chat over voice.

Businesses cannot risk being stuck in the past, however many are still finding it difficult to adjust to advancing technologies.

We’ve put together concise free guides and practical advice on implementing web self-service, Virtual Agents or web chat which you can download here:

* Multi-channel Online Customer Service for Dummies.
* Virtual Agents for Dummies.
* Web chat – 5 killer reasons why you are doing it wrong.
* Virtual Agents – to bot or not?.