Member Article

Dialling dilemma: How Sunday trading has affected Britain’s industry

Sundays – once thought of as the day of rest, are now a prime trading day. New statistics published by alldayPA via an infographic show us the knock-on effect that Sunday trading has had across various industries. As the amount of calls made on a Sunday continues to rise, we discuss how businesses can move with the times and meet the changing consumer demand.

The infographic highlights the growth in Sunday customer service enquiries. The volume of calls made on a Sunday has dramatically increased within the last 2 years. Saturday also experienced an increase, yet it was slightly smaller.

You’d be forgiven for thinking that Sunday trading was originally something that only affected the retail industry. The British high street fought long and hard for its right to trade on a Sunday, and although it may seem like a distant memory to some, Sunday trading was completely out of the question before 1994.

Yet here we now are, in a world where customers expect businesses to be available 24 hours a day, 7 days a week.

Sunday trading has crept away from the high street and infiltrated other sectors of Britain’s industry. According to alldayPA, the property sector saw a huge 200% increase in out-of-hours calls between 2012 and 2014, leading us to question if a shakeup of the regular 9-5 routine is long overdue.

Law firms saw a smaller, yet still impressive, 60% increase in out-of-hours calling, highlighting the fact that the influence of Sunday trading spans across different industries.

Customers are increasing the pressure for businesses to tend to their needs on a Sunday. Many firms think that setting up voicemails, emails and social networking accounts will help stem the flow of enquires, but this is a dangerous game.

Letting a backlog of emails and voicemails build up over the weekend means that you will have to chase customers on Monday morning and neglect your more pressing tasks.

Relying on social media to take the brunt of customer service enquiries is also a risky move. When customers complain about services via Twitter and Facebook, it is in the public domain forever. Their friends and family will see it on their newsfeeds, tarring your brand reputation. It gets worse if you’re not actually checking your social media accounts over the weekend. Many customers expect a speedy response to their 140 character rage; if your social media team has scheduled tweets to post over the weekend it will look as if you are ignoring your customers.

Your business needs a plan to tackle the influx of Sunday callers. You can choose to recruit new staff, rearrange the working hours of current staff, or outsource the workload completely. The main thing is to have a plan in place soon, because if the Sunday callers haven’t found your sector yet, it’s only a matter of time!

This was posted in Bdaily's Members' News section by Suzanne Yates .