5 Amazing Customer Service Lessons From Father Christmas

Christmas is fast approaching, and it’s one of the busiest times for different sectors all across the world. 

Even when you’re rushed off your feet, you can’t afford for your customer service to take a back seat. As a business, the customer is your main reason for existing, and you shouldn’t be afraid to pull out all the stops to keep them happy.

Given the time of year, there’s one person in particular that we can look to for inspiration on giving excellent customer service, and that is Father Christmas. We’ve taken a closer look at the work that Santa does, and chosen five of his best customer service lessons that businesses everywhere should be following.

1. Be friendly

There are certain traits that embody Father Christmas and are as synonymous with the name as the red suit.

While we’re not suggesting that you take a leaf straight out of his book, there’s certainly nothing wrong with injecting a little more friendliness into your customer service.

“Smile while you dial” is a well-known phrase amongst call centre workers, as the smile on your face comes across in your tone of voice. If you’re more customer-facing, be helpful every time you see a customer in need.

They may say no, but at least you’ve acknowledged their presence and shown them that you are willing to help.

2. Have the right team around you

Even the very best at their jobs need support around them; after all, Father Christmas doesn’t do it all alone! Throughout the year he has elves making the toys, and on Christmas Eve it’s up to his reindeer to fly him and all the presents around the globe to make millions of deliveries.

Your employees and co-workers may not have pointy ears or antlers, but they have the exact same value. Providing great customer support is a team effort; it isn’t just down to one single person, and it starts as soon as your customer first comes into contact with your business. From the first “hello” from a receptionist to tweets from a company’s Twitter account, every employee they come into contact with from that moment on should all be pulling in the same direction.

Read the rest of the lessons:
5 Amazing #CustomerService Lessons From Father Christmas

Call Quality Monitoring Is More Important Than Ever With Holidays Approaching

Believe it or not, the holiday shopping season is less than one month away (Black Friday), or in some retail outlets, it is already here!.

Reports say that consumer spending in 2010 might be down this season. Other online reports show increased spending for Christmas.


This has some interesting effects in our space: online catalog companies, and e-tailers, are likely to see an increase in call center activity, as shoppers call in with questions, for support, to place orders, etc.; call center operations managers will be challenged to produce -- more upsells, more saves, increased customer satisfaction.


As always, it will also be important to reduce the costs of running the center - less churn of employees, faster training cycles, faster customer handling times, etc.


Virtual Observer has been able to help many e-tailers address these issues and make serious performance gains, including Harry & David, Crutchfield Electronics, Fox Head Inc., Casual Male XL, Cigars International, J&P Cycles and many more.


Do your CSRs enter credit card information on-screen or take credit card information over the phone? It is also mission critical for e-tailers to maintain PCI compliance.


Virtual Observer helps firms remain compliant through the use of 256-bit media encryption and through granular security which allows administrators to control privileges down to the functional level and through our "LightsOut!" functionality, which automatically eliminate sensitive data after it has been entered on the screen.

Related articles

• Bold Software Releases Holiday Readiness 2010 Research Report (prweb.com)
• Retailers ramp up hiring for holiday season (calgaryherald.com)