How to Use Staff Leasing to Manage the Holiday Call Traffic
The holidays are a crazy time for all businesses, particularly retail, and especially if you are a small business with a product that is popular during the holiday season. You may hire some seasonal help to handle sales and service, but have you thought about how you will handle the influx of phone calls while you are on the floor closing deals and making sales?
You do not want to miss a sale because no one was available to answer a simple question over the phone, resulting in the customer moving on to a competitor. Staff leasing is an excellent solution for handling the increased holiday call traffic.
What is Staff Leasing?
Staff leasing is not the same as acquiring help through a temp agency. A temporary employee is fully an employee of the agency through which you contract them, and not your employee at all. When you contract for staff leasing, you are a co-employer.
As the co-employer, you are responsible for the management of the employee: work schedule, supervision, and task-specific training. Your contracted PEO, or Professional Employer Organization, takes care of the complicated administrative side of having employees: payroll, benefits, possibly even retirement. Through staff leasing, your PEO takes care of all requirements and labor laws pertaining to hiring and firing.
What Are the Benefits of Staff Leasing With ROI?
Staff leasing through ROI Call Center Solutions is particularly beneficial to startups and small and mid-sized businesses. Typically these businesses do not have a university-trained Human Resources Director, a separate payroll person, or a director of administration handling training and scheduling. Let’s be honest: a lot of times all of these tasks are handled by one person in one office. As the co-employer, ROI handles these responsibilities for your company, so you can be out on the floor or in the field generating income.
There is a fee that is paid to the PEO, but your return on investment will be tremendous when you suddenly realize you can concentrate on making sales. If you could put a dollar amount on the reduction of stress and HR headaches, staff leasing is priceless.
Staff leasing positions are also beneficial to the employees of the PEOs. Many of their employees sign on with PEOs because they like the flexibility of schedule and positions, and varying types of work. Professional Employer Organizations like ROI have a much larger staff which gives employees more leverage when negotiating for health insurance, disability, and even worker’s compensation. They can provide benefits that a small company, although very successful, will not have the power to do.
Staff Leasing and Holiday Call Volume
Now, you may be thinking “well, I’m not mail order” or “I am available at the store to answer questions when people visit.” Just as your business picks up at the holidays, so do the lives of shoppers.
More and more people are doing online and phone research before they hit the road to the shops. For good or bad, people do not want to take the time to browse a main street or mall. They know exactly what they need to buy and want to know they can walk in with cash (or credit) and walk out with the gift. Staff leasing can provide you the perfect employee to answer their questions and practically make that sale for you.
One more thing…don’t forget the AFTER holiday need for staff leasing to handle phone calls. This may be even more important than the pre-holiday rush, because the ability to have someone answer their questions and address their concerns can make the difference between a one-time customer who returns a purchase, and a long-time supporter who will come back again and again.
