Holiday Routing

Today customer expectations for seamless, reliable communication and support are higher than ever. One way to deliver this is by implementing different call management features to make your business accessible at all times, even during holidays. A feature like holiday routing, in particular, can help ensure customers always have someone to speak to. This feature empowers businesses to navigate through holiday seasons, employee vacations, and other periods of unavailability without compromising on customer service. With this feature, your business can:

• Route calls to different locations and teams during holiday seasons or employee vacations
• Help customers through major holidays with updated times
• Send calls to offshore call centers or backup teams

What is Holiday Call Routing?

Holiday routing is an advanced call routing feature. It offers the flexibility to direct incoming calls during holidays or specific timeframes according to predefined rules. Holiday call routing ensures that customer inquiries are promptly addressed even when the primary team is unavailable.

How Does Holiday Routing Work?

Typically, holiday call routing is integrated with existing call management infrastructure. As part of setup, you may have to define a list of holidays—religious observances, national holidays, employee vacation days, etc. You will also have to establish rules related to rerouting calls; i.e. where will incoming calls during this time go? And will they ring simultaneously or sequentially to these backup destinations?

Note that the mechanics of the holiday call routing feature differ from one service provider to another. For United World Telecom customers, setting up this feature is pretty straightforward. Through our intuitive online control panel, you can create a holiday list for your company and define rules for call handling during those periods.

How to Use Holiday Routing?

Businesses can leverage holiday call routing to manage calls effectively during holiday periods. For instance, when the primary team is unavailable, incoming calls can be redirected to alternative numbers, remote teams, or an IVR system with pre-recorded messages for information or troubleshooting assistance. Doing so ensures uninterrupted customer support while maintaining business continuity.

An example: A contact center handling customer inquiries, technical support, and sales inquiries is experiencing a surge in call volume during holiday seasons due to being short-staffed as many agents are off for the holidays.

To manage the increased demand and ensure uninterrupted service, you can implement holiday call routing. Prioritize calls based on urgency and nature of inquiry. Or route critical issues to available agents and routine inquiries to self-service IVR options. Similarly, if one office is closed for Thanksgiving, send calls to your other office, located in another country which remains operational.

Use Cases Across Industries

Here are more ways businesses across different industries can use holiday routing to provide flexible and reliable customer service:

1. Hospitality and Travel: During peak vacation periods, hotels, airlines, and travel agencies can forward calls to available staff for urgent matters like booking requests, itinerary changes, travel assistance, etc. Routine issues can be directed to self-service options.

2. Technology and Software: Holiday call routing is especially useful in providing continued technical support and assistance. Send calls to backup teams and seasonal agents to ensure that customer inquiries about technical issues, software updates, and product troubleshooting are handled promptly, minimizing product or service downtime.

3. Financial Services: Banks, credit unions, and other financial institutions can use this routing strategy to maintain customer service operations during banking holidays and peak financial seasons. You can direct calls to specialized teams or remote staff to handle queries about account management, transactions, etc.

4. Retail and E-commerce: During peak shopping seasons like Diwali and Christmas, you can utilize this routing system to manage increased call volumes. Route these calls to outsourced staff, call center BPOs, or dedicated teams to assist customers with high-priority inquiries about orders, returns, product availability, etc.

Benefits of Using Holiday Call Routing

Your business can benefit immensely from using this advanced call routing system. Here are the top benefits:

• Minimize Missed Opportunities: This system ensures customers are attended to at all times. This minimizes missed calls, thereby minimizing missed opportunities and potential sales.
• Provide Round-the-Clock Customer Support: You can provide uninterrupted customer service even during holidays. Continued service is a key factor in maintaining customer continuity.
• Access Advanced Features: You get access to a variety of features including holiday calendars, advanced routing rules, personalized greetings, and cloud-based IVR, facilitating seamless call management.
• Prepare for Maintenance and Upgrades: Implementing failover mechanisms, like forwarding calls to another number or location, ensures preparedness for maintenance activities or system upgrades. This guarantees continuity of service delivery without disruptions.

Where Can I Get Holiday Call Routing?

Holiday call routing services are available from cloud phone service providers like United World Telecom. We provide holiday routing for free with each of our cloud-based phone number plans. Contact our experts or look through our pricing page to learn more about our virtual phone numbers.

How to Set up Call Routing for Holidays?

Setting up holiday call routing with United World Telecom is simple. Here is how you can configure this type of routing with your call forwarding number within the control panel:

1. Log in to your Control Panel.
2. Choose a phone service line and click on Settings.
3. Select Call Forwarding from the horizontal menu and click Advanced Routing.
4. Click on the Holiday Routing button.
5. Click the green Create a New Holiday List button. Add the name of the list, description, and select your days.
6. Then, click on Save New Holiday List. You can set up multiple lists for different holidays.
7. Go back to Advanced Routing and click on Go to Rules.
8. Click the green Create New Rule button. Add a description and select the desired holiday list from the dropdown box on the right-hand side. Then, add the necessary routing rules for this particular holiday list.
9. Click Save Rule.

Take a look at the step-by-step guide to understand the setup process better.