Navigating the Holiday Rush With AI

Greater digital interaction hasn’t killed the phone call, with over half of customer care leaders globally expecting a 20% increase in the volume of calls by 2026. Balancing a growing number of queries while sustaining quality of service is therefore set to get harder, no matter the time of year. But doing so will be especially tough during the peak Q4 shopping and service season.

The correlation between accelerated Golden Quarter sales and higher support requirements isn’t new: as illustrated by past records that state call rates spike by 50% during Cyber Week alone. With an influx in purchase rates comes the increased need for help with queries — and often complex problems. When they can’t solve issues through self-service, recent research shows customers of all ages still regularly pick up the phone for human assistance. 

So, how can customer service leaders better equip their teams to manage the holiday rush?

Giving Conversations Streamlined Sparkle

With 84% of UK shoppers agreeing a positive Black Friday experience would encourage them back to retailers, ensuring great service amid super sales is crucial to increasing immediate revenues and customer loyalty. One simple way AI can achieve this is by providing basic text-based troubleshooting assistance so that human specialists can resolve higher volumes of complex problems. But the experience-enhancing potential of AI goes far beyond chatbots.

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According to McKinsey, customer care innovators are investing in areas that harness AI’s large-scale data processing to fuel-efficient support, including knowledge searches and automated call summaries. For example, generative AI interfaces that allow agents to define key requirements and run rapid searches of internal databases provide real-time access to refined insights, meaning customer issues can be quickly tackled during limited promotions.

Similarly, smart summaries can streamline ongoing service. Instead of leaving returning callers on hold while they wade through past records, experts can use concise notes to quickly understand conversations and identify how best to meet customer needs. This means no more repeated explanations of the same issues across agents.

Keeping Customers in the Holiday Spirit

From clogged supply chains to purchasing glitches, accelerated festive buying often intensifies support challenges and shopper frustration, which makes it important to closely monitor how customers are feeling, in addition to fixing problems swiftly. Following major evolution in large language models, intelligent analytical tools can make detecting emotional changes easier by picking up on the nuanced sentiment in what customers say.

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This granular data not only acts as a deeper gauge of service performance beyond first-contact resolution but also presents an opportunity to turn interactions around. For instance, live notifications of negative emotions can alert supervisors to where agents need increased support in driving satisfaction, whether that’s via behind-the-scenes advice or direct call participation.

At a wider level, assessing data across teams can also spotlight emerging sentiment trends, giving leaders a clear view of how communication styles and tactics should be adjusted to better suit individual preferences and bolster overall levels of customer happiness.

The two fundamentals of strong customer experience have always been convenience and personalization. With an AI-enabled future upon us, intelligent technology is helping to sustain this balance by providing time-saving assistance and insight that empowers agents to ensure it never slips. As the holiday rush fuels elevated demand from customers who expect smooth, efficient and tailored phone services, this means AI is set to prove an essential ally.