Preparing for the unexpected: Is your customer service ready for busy times?

Emma Martins

With Black Friday and Christmas around the corner, retail brands across the UK are gearing up for a season of madness. That’s right, most companies that are able to effectively increase the size of their customer service for busy times are already putting the finishing touches on their preparation a full 3 months ahead.

We have a long history of helping our clients prepare for their peak seasons, whether that be Christmas for retail, spring for housing, or summer for travel and tourism. But there are always those emergencies and events that you can’t control or predict. So how do brands fair when the rise in contact volumes is sudden and unexpected?

To see the extent of the problem, we surveyed customer care managers in medium to large businesses, asking them about their struggles and successes with scaling their customer service for busy times.



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customer service agent during busy times

Some Interesting Findings…

96% of companies agreed that customer service is a big concern for them.
41% are uncertain if they could handle a sudden influx in contacts.
33% of businesses are unsure how to arrange cover for busy times.
43% of businesses were unable to scale up their customer care team.
Every UK outsourced customer care team was able to expand without any trouble.
87% agreed that scaling up helped minimise the negative impact of this sudden increase.

In this mini report, we explore:

+ The current landscape of customer service

+ If brands were able to successfully handle a sudden increase in contact volumes

+ Why some businesses weren’t able to expand their customer care team quickly enough

+ What the consequences were of not doing the above

+ And more!

Want to see the full insights?

Download the report for free:



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