Stay ready for Black Friday with Telia Smart Connect

Black Friday, holiday sales, and other busy seasons can bring a huge spike in customer demand, putting pressure on your team to maintain excellent service. With Telia Smart Connect, your business can handle high call volumes, streamline communication, and provide a seamless customer experience—even during the busiest times.

In this post, we’ll explore the key features of Telia Smart Connect that can help your team stay efficient and responsive, along with examples of how these tools can be put to work.

Black Friday and Cyber Monday aren’t just record-breaking sales days—they also bring an overwhelming increase in customer service demands. Companies experience a surge in support tickets during the period around Black Friday and Cyber Monday, with elevated volumes lasting until the end of December. This massive uptick in activity highlights the importance of having the right tools and strategies to maintain excellent service during peak times.

One of Telia Smart Connect’s greatest strengths is its flexibility and elasticity, made possible because it’s cloud-based. This allows your business to adapt effortlessly to fluctuating demands during peak periods like Black Friday. You can quickly add temporary team members to handle the extra workload and only pay for them during a short period when needed. The system automatically scales queue capacity to meet demand, so there’s no risk of queues filling up or paying for more capacity than needed. Plus, anyone in your organization—whether it’s the CEO, a developer, or an external support agent—can log on to the queues and assist when necessary, ensuring you always have the resources to serve customers.

Essential Telia Smart Connect features for Black Friday

Below we have collected a small selection of particularly useful features during busy periods.

1. Efficient call handling and queue management
   Keep up with high call volumes using the Switchboard, which provides a real-time overview of queues and agent availability. Route calls efficiently, manage overflow queues, and minimize customer wait times to keep service levels high.
2. Dialed conference for quick task force coordination
   When urgent situations arise, the dialed conference feature allows you to quickly gather a task force of key team members. Whether it’s about resolving customer issues or addressing unexpected challenges, dialed conference enables instant coordination to keep operations running smoothly during hectic times. To learn more, check out our blog post on the business benefits of seamless phone conferencing.
3. Automated customer satisfaction surveys
   Use the customer satisfaction survey feature (Net Promoter Score) to gather feedback after each interaction. Automatically send SMS surveys to customers to monitor satisfaction in real time, allowing for timely adjustments to maintain service quality. For more on how this feature works, read our blog post on customer satisfaction surveys
4. Real-time reporting and analytics
   Use the statistics features to monitor and analyze data on call metrics such as number of calls, number of answered calls, average wait time and timeout calls. This allows managers to make informed decisions, reallocate resources, or adapt schedules as needed to maintain efficiency throughout Black Friday.

“Companies experience a surge in support tickets during the period around Black Friday and Cyber Monday”

Use cases: How Telia Smart Connect supports businesses during Black Friday

How Telia Smart Connect can be particularly beneficial for managing customer interactions during Black Friday and other high-demand periods:

• Optimizing call queues for efficient handling
  On Black Friday, your business may experience a surge of calls. With Telia Smart Connect’s Switchboard, calls can be automatically routed to available agents, and priority queues can be set up for VIP customers. And in case you need to bring in extra support during these hectic days, you can easily assign new people to the queues. Maybe the CEO, developer or sales person need to step in. No problem!
• Coordinating a task force with dialed conference
  During Black Friday sales, unexpected issues often arise that require immediate attention. With the dialed conference feature, a team leader can quickly connect key team members to resolve urgent issues, ensuring minimal disruptions to customer service and maintaining a smooth operation.
• Making data-driven adjustments with real-time reporting
  Throughout Black Friday, the real-time analytics feature allows managers to monitor call volumes, wait times, and agent performance. For instance, if a spike in calls occurs, team members can reallocate agents or adjust schedules on the spot to handle the demand effectively. This data-driven approach ensures that resources are optimized in real-time, helping to maintain high service standards even during peak hours. To make the monitoring easier you can utilise the dashboard and wallboard feature.

Tips to prepare for Black Friday with Telia Smart Connect

To make the most of Telia Smart Connect during peak times, here are some proactive steps you can take:

• Review and update operating hours: Assess whether adjusting or extending customer service hours could help meet increased demand more effectively.
• Set up a dedicated task force: Assemble a team to handle urgent issues during the Black Friday rush. Use the dialed conference feature to ensure this team is ready to coordinate instantly when needed.
• Prepare customer satisfaction surveys: Set up customer satisfaction surveys to be sent automatically after each call during Black Friday. This allows you to collect valuable customer feedback in real time and make improvements on the go.
• Monitor performance in real time: In addition to NPS, use analytics to track key metrics such as number of calls, number of answered calls, average wait time, and timeout calls. These insights allow you to adjust resources as needed to maintain service levels and respond to surges effectively.