Operationally speaking, being able to get through support tickets without the fear of backlog building up means your team is staffed, efficient, and not burned out—leaving them time to provide personalized responses to customers.
The holidays can be a stressful time for consumers. There are gifts to buy, trips to book, dishes to prep… and everything needs to be ready on time for festive plans.
If your support team isn’t resolving tickets on time, the window for placing that order gets tighter. Customers are either choosing a competitor or flooding your inbox with frantic tickets.
Let’s dive into how you can stay ahead of the game by using the right tools and tech for peak season—from self-service options to AI-driven support and automation.
Comprehensive knowledge bases and FAQs play a crucial role in empowering customers to resolve issues independently, particularly during peak seasons when customer service teams may be overwhelmed.
These tools give customers immediate access to information, without forcing them to wait for a support agent.
This means your team will be freed up to handle more complex questions and have more time to offer personalized touches to responses.
During peak seasons, when support teams are at capacity, this reduction in volume can be the difference between missing service levels and maintaining them.
If you don’t know where to start, Helpjuice is a knowledge base software that helps you create help content, and it’s search-optimized to help customers find answers quickly.
Zendesk Guide can help you create your own self-service portal with FAQs, and my favorite part is that you can have community forums built in.
Community forums reduce customer service ticket volumes by allowing customers to help each other with common issues.
In Mozilla Forums, for instance, users frequently share solutions and troubleshooting tips for Firefox and other Mozilla products, which not only empowers the community but also alleviates the load on Mozilla’s support team.
Similarly, some companies have even used Reddit to create dedicated communities where users can discuss problems, share advice, and find answers—for free.
Spotify’s presence on Reddit has helped create a community where users troubleshoot issues, share playlists, and discuss updates, reducing the need for direct support and building stronger brand loyalty through peer-to-peer interaction.
Questions answered on community forums often get indexed by search engines, meaning they appear in Google search results when users look for solutions to similar problems.
This greatly expands the reach of the forum content, allowing even those who aren't active forum members to benefit from the shared knowledge.
For example, solutions discussed in Mozilla Forums frequently show up in Google searches, enabling users to quickly find relevant answers to their Firefox issues without having to submit a support ticket.
AI chatbots have really grown in popularity. They provide instant responses to frequently asked questions, like order status, return policies, or troubleshooting steps.
They can greatly reduce First Response Time (FRT) down to mere seconds, which, of course, frees up your human agents to tackle more complex, nuanced issues that really need a personal touch.
H&M implemented an AI chatbot on their website, and it managed to handle 30% of all customer queries without any human intervention, significantly reducing their Average Handling Time (AHT) and cutting down operational costs.
By automating these routine tasks, you not only boost efficiency, but also save on labor costs, making your support team more effective and your customers happier.
AI can also manage email inquiries during high seasons. By automatically sorting and responding to emails, AI can drastically cut down on the time it takes to get back to customers.
It can quickly analyze the content of each email, categorize it, and even draft personalized responses for common issues. Like chatbots, it speeds up First Response Time (FRT) and improves Average Handling Time (AHT).
Lufthansa implemented an AI-powered email management system that was able to handle 60% of customer emails without human intervention, leading to a 70% reduction in response times and a significant decrease in operational costs.
By leveraging AI in this way, you can ensure faster, more efficient service, all while keeping expenses in check.
Automation takes the manual work out of ticket routing, ensuring that every customer inquiry lands in the right hands from the start.
By automatically analyzing the content of each ticket and directing it to the most appropriate department, businesses can speed up the resolution process, significantly improving both First Response Time (FRT) and Average Handling Time (AHT).
This kind of smart routing minimizes delays and reduces the risk of tickets bouncing between departments.
A great example of this in action is Zendesk, which offers an automated ticket routing system that helped Uber streamline their support processes.
Uber was able to cut down ticket handling time by 25%, ensuring that customers got the help they needed faster while also keeping operational costs in check.
With automation handling the routing, your team can focus on solving issues quickly and efficiently, leading to happier customers and a more cost-effective support operation.
Workflow automation is another great solution for teams looking to improve metrics.
By automating repetitive tasks like sending follow-up emails or providing status updates, businesses can shave precious minutes off their Average Handling Time (AHT).
Atlassian implemented automated workflows in their support system, which reduced manual task handling by 40%, leading to faster ticket resolution and significant cost savings.
Automating these routine tasks keeps things moving smoothly, ensuring your team stays on top of customer inquiries without getting bogged down by the small stuff.
It’s a win-win that boosts efficiency and cuts down on labor costs, all while keeping customers informed and happy.
A multi-channel strategy is essential for meeting customers wherever they are, whether it’s on social media, email, chat, or phone.
To get the most out of your channels, it's crucial to optimize them with automation and AI. For instance, AI-driven chatbots can instantly handle inquiries on social media, while automated email sorting ensures quick and accurate responses.
Meanwhile, smart IVR systems can route phone calls efficiently. But no matter the channel, the key is delivering a consistent experience.
Your customers should feel like they’re getting the same level of service, whether they’re chatting with a bot on Facebook or speaking to an agent over the phone.
It’s also important to remember that while automation and AI are powerful tools, customers don’t want to feel like it’s impossible to reach a human agent.
There should always be a human behind each solution, ready to step in for more complex issues.
By integrating automation and AI across all channels, with human oversight and accessibility, you not only streamline operations but also ensure that every interaction feels seamless, reliable, and on-brand.
