Over the past week planes have been grounded, trains have been delayed and roads have been made hazardous. The snow could not have come at a worst time for people who are planning long journeys to spend Christmas with family and friends but at Office Response it’s business as usual.
As we offer a 24 hour service we know we play an important role in contingency planning for our customers. This has been demonstrated over the past week in the call volume increase from our customers for reasons ranging from callers chasing orders which have not been delivered due to poor road conditions, offices closing early to allow staff to make it home safely and increases in the demand for maintenance services.
Whilst we pride ourselves of being able to support our customers in this way, Bristol, like many parts of the Country, received enough snow to slow public transport and affect the roads resulting in our staffing resources being reduced by half.
However we know the only way we could successfully manage this was to view it as a challenge rather than a problem and look at how we can ensure our service level is maintained.
During bad weather spells in 2010 we have had members of our Sales team, Customer Services team, Senior Managers and even the Managing Director taking calls in the Contact Centre which proved a great opportunity for team building throughout the business!
We have also made sure our customers know what we are doing to ensure they can continue to rely on us to support them.
Over this week we have received really positive feedback from our customers and we are pleased to report that yesterday we answered over 96% of all calls within 20 seconds.
Felicity Clack
Customer Services Manager
