The Customer Service Slump

The holidays are a great time of year, depending on who you are and what you do for a living. Most people on the front lines in a retail organization will tell you that this time of year is exhausting. They work longer than normal hours on days when it seems like the rest of the world is at home. The volume of human beings in stores is staggering and a majority of those people just aren’t nice, which tends to send a lot of retail employees to a terrible customer service place. The same things can happen to our people in the home service industry.

This time of year is stressful for us in a lot of different ways. Our customers on the phone are more upset than normal, because the problems in their homes could mean they will have less money to spend on the people they love. Some of our businesses slow down for those same reasons. When it comes down to a choice between our services and gifts, we lose more often than not. Our teams can sense the pressure of lower-than-normal earnings and the possibility of technicians being sent home early. They also bear the brunt of those crankier-than-normal customers. This is all a recipe for poor customer service.