Imperative to Properly Train Temporary Holiday Staff
Most retail businesses make the majority of their sales between Thanksgiving and Christmas. In order to handle the increased orders, many online vendors will hire temporary\seasonal help. Many of these companies do not properly train the employees on their own customer service applications due to their short term status. This is a huge mistake since these representatives are the "face of the company" and, often times, provide the customer's first impression of the company. Giving a bad impression can guarantee a lost customer.
I would like to share a real world example where I experienced this first hand. A few weeks before Christmas, I ordered a toy for my youngest son from a toy company that I had never ordered from before. After a couple of days, I called their customer service to get a status on the order and was informed it had been shipped. Every week, I repeatedly called customer service to get an update on the shipping status and was told it was shipped. After 3 weeks, I called once again and was informed that it was shipped but the snow storm that hit the Northeast was the reason for the delay. Keep in mind that the snow storm hit the Northeast 2 weeks after the item was supposedly shipped. Finally, after 5 weeks, I talked to a different sales representative and was informed that the product was never shipped. She also admitted that the customer order screens are a little confusing for the seasonal help to interpret.
Had this company spent the necessary resources to ensure the "face of their company," the customer service representative would have fully understood how to interpret their customer order screens and provided me with accurate information and I would have remained a customer.
In order to have retained me as a customer, the company could have taken just a couple of extra steps:
- Offered to expedite shipping of product overnight or next day air at no additional cost.
- Provided an incentive on one or more future orders:
- Free shipping
- Additional discounts
- Gift cards
Needless to say, this company failed to follow through on any of the above and lost me as a future customer.
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