Tuesday, December 13, 2011

Is Your Virtual Assistant Ready for the Holidays?

With less than two weeks before the holidays are upon us, it's a good time to ask yourself if your website is ready to handle the rush.
Luckily, you have a Virtual Assistant that can manage thousands of customer requests simultaneously, on the web or via mobile device.

Use the Virtual Assistant to:
1) Respond to set up and customer service questions. If your products and services are purchased as gifts, they should be bundled with the support to get your customers up and running quickly. Answering these requests quickly ensures increased customer satisfaction and brand loyalty.

2) Use the analytics! Your Virtual Assistant is wrapped in a shiny package with metrics. Find out what your customers are asking to:

- Increase up-sell opportunities: if they bought the device, and didn't get the adapters, use the Virtual Assistant to guide them to the right place. Similar to an in-store experience, the Virtual Assistant can take your customer by the hand (the virtual hand) and walk them to the isle
(the page) where they can purchase complementary products.

- Build competitive products: take advantage of the voice of the customer. After the rush is over, you won't just be left with bags of holiday wrapping paper for the recycling bin. Your bonus is the gold mine of feedback and customer intelligence that will help you not only improve your offerings, but empower you to get closer to your customers.
Providing this intelligence to marketing, sales, as well as customer service will make you a superstar.

- Reduce support costs: Provide your new and existing customers with the best gift for the holidays. Sometimes, they don't want to talk to you, and it's evident. Leverage the Virtual Assistant to increase self-service on your site. Your customers will thank you.

3) Use your Virtual Assistant like an army of holiday clerks.
Did you know you can use the same Virtual Assistant on your social media channels like Facebook, Blog, etc? In a brick and mortar business, you would never forget to fully equip your store to handle the rush -- don't forget to do it online.

4) Be sure to give your Virtual Assistant access to the right information. At the last minute, everybody has the same question "Where is my order?" or "what offers are available in my area?" Connect your Virtual Assistant with your Customer Relationship Management (CRM) or back end systems to be sure your customers get an all encompassing solution.

5) And finally (holiday drum-roll please): Give your Virtual Assistant the ability to escalate to the right sources. In a real store experience, the clerk always has the option to ask for help. Use the Virtual Assistant to right-channel your customers so they can get to the right place. For example, if your customer wants to take advantage of your holiday offer to refer a friend, perhaps he/she needs help with the process. A Virtual Assistant can always help, but in some cases a live agent is necessary. Use seamless live chat integration so the customer doesn't have to repeat himself, and the agent knows right away how to respond.


If you want to learn more about getting your Virtual Assistant holiday ready, please contact your account team. We have a few gold nuggets that we save for our customers. Happy Holidays from noHold!

1 comment:

  1. Hi,

    There is a cost-effective solution to the surplus of holiday work that most small businesses experience. Most of the duties on your holiday to-do list are items that can be completed by a professional Virtual Assistant. Here are just some of the ways that a VA can relieve your stress this holiday season. Thanks a lot...

    Virtual Customer Support

    ReplyDelete