The vacation season is shortly approaching, and whereas customers are simply starting to consider it, many corporations, like Groupon, have been planning for months. One of the vital essential methods to plan forward for the vacation season is thru optimized customer support.
That is the place Groupon excels.
On this episode, we spoke with Adam Lindsey, Senior Director, World Service Operations at Groupon the place he shared particulars on how his staff has all the time managed to remain one step forward with regards to holding prospects comfortable throughout busy intervals of the 12 months.
Let’s dive into the simplest methods of lowering a backlog of tickets and the way finest to arrange and help your staff each mentally and virtually and extra.
Getting ready for Vacation Spikes
Based on Forbes, buyer help requests improve 5-10 occasions throughout the vacation season. On prime of that, The Nationwide Retail Basis reported that 46% of buyers began their vacation procuring sooner than standard in 2021. As the vacation season continues to creep earlier into the 12 months, it’s very important for companies to arrange for vacation spikes. However, how can a world enterprise do that?
“Over the previous decade or so, what we’ve been doing is centralizing and standardizing [our customer service approach],” stated Adam Lindsey, Senior Director, World Service Operations at Groupon. “Now we’ve one customer support staff and one workforce administration operate. We take the very best practices from in all places after which consolidate them. It additionally means from a capability and staffing perspective, we’ve far more assets and we will view issues extra holistically.”
Translation is a big element of this centralized strategy.
“By Unbabel, this 12 months, we’ve additionally been in a position to transfer to a language agnostic setup,” Lindsey continues. “So an agent might be talking with a Polish buyer, then a French buyer, then a Spanish buyer – offering the identical stage of service by means of Unbabel. What that has enabled us to do is have this 24/7 setup.”
Lindsey shares that even past a centralized strategy to customer support – the numbers are key to concentrate to.
“We by no means cease wanting on the numbers,” Lindsey shares. “So my management staff and I meet each single day. We verify the incoming quantity. We be sure the productiveness and the staffing is in place. It’s about being actually on prime of the numbers always.”
Addressing Ticket Backlog
Regardless of being nicely ready for the vacation season, ticket backlogs are inevitable. So, how does Groupon deal with this improve in quantity?
“The important thing factor, particularly in peak season, is you need to count on the surprising,” Lindsey says. “When backlogs occur, which they do, and it’s not simply in peak season, the important thing factor is ensuring you may have all people concerned that must be concerned. In the end a backlog is when you may have an excessive amount of workload for the individuals you need to full the work. It’s about understanding type of the place you might be with the employees you’ve bought after which understanding what levers you need to pull when that occurs.”
Setting Buyer Expectations
The vacation season could be a time when a enterprise makes or breaks a loyal buyer base. Customer support is a big element of buyer loyalty. Setting buyer expectations forward of time can forestall an sad buyer and finally, contribute to making a loyal one.
“It is best to all the time underpromise and over-deliver,” Lindsey shares. “So in case you specified that you’ll reply to a question inside 24 hours, it is best to have a 12-hour inside SLA. For those who use instruments like Zendesk and Salesforce to have the power to supply automated updates, construct these in once more as default as nicely. That approach, at set intervals, a reminder shall be despatched to the client simply to reassure them.”
Even with the very best customer support expertise, nevertheless, there’ll all the time be pissed off prospects and brokers are most frequently on the receiving finish of that have.
“[When dealing with an upset customer], it’s about empowering the agent with all the knowledge that they’ve obtainable,” Lindsey says. “We’re additionally beginning to generate higher responses by means of AI. So, relatively than having template responses that turn into very robotic and will be fairly infuriating on the receiving finish, every buyer now receives a curated response that’s generated by means of AI.”
Retaining Consistency All through the Buyer Service Expertise
Messaging and personalization goes a good distance within the buyer journey, and making a constant and optimistic expertise is key to making sure a cheerful buyer. When translation comes into play, these nuances and personalised components can get misplaced.
“It’s an entire new world with instruments like Unbabel,” Lindsey says. “Traditionally, we might write a template in English after which we might have it translated and then you definately would have a whole bunch and 1000’s of template responses. With Unbabel, you’ll be able to write far more personalized, personalised responses by setting the tone of formal, casual, and all the remainder to result in extra favorable outcomes.”
And whereas Groupon has a optimistic expertise with translation now, it wasn’t all the time the case.
“Going again a very long time in the past, we had a backlog in one in all our markets that didn’t converse English,” Lindsey recollects. “So we used Google Translate, the place we had of us within the London workplace utilizing it, and that was a primary instance of how to not do customer support. There’s all the time shortcuts to success and there’s all the time alternate options, however until the standard is there, it’s pointless as a result of then you definately drive your personal issues by way of repeat contacts and escalation.”
Whereas messaging and translation are inarguably essential, Lindsey shares that hiring and coaching must also catch the attention of manufacturers main as much as the vacation season.
“It is advisable rent to handle the capability and handle the volumes,” Lindsey shares. “So, it’s not simply coping with your skilled employees who’ve been right here earlier than. It’s ensuring that you simply take into account the brokers all through, and you retain them knowledgeable wherever doable.”
The Way forward for Buyer Service
As instruments akin to AI evolve, customer support will inevitably change as nicely. What rising applied sciences and instruments does Groupon see as having a big impression on customer support?
“[With AI and ChatGPT], I take a look at it as the identical as the identical transition of chatbots a decade or so in the past,” Lindsey says. “What I hope we will do for AI and ChatGPT is be taught from these [chatbot] classes and perceive that the goal isn’t about automating 100% of all people’s job, nevertheless it’s about taking up the repetitive duties that may be automated. It’s about upskilling your workforce. It’s concerning the position of customer support turning into a way more intricate and complicated job than it’s even right this moment.”
Involved in studying extra about breaking down language obstacles in customer support? Watch the total webinar right here.