Thanksgiving Day Woes Disappear With Butterball Turkey Talk-Line

Thanksgiving Day, sometimes affectionately referred to as Turkey Day, is just a few days away. You may have already purchased your turkey. It may be in your freezer, or you may already be thawing it out. On Thursday, you’ll put it in the oven.

This is a big meal – an important meal. If you’re cooking the turkey, there’s a pretty good chance you’ll be enjoying the meal with family and friends. Anxiety runs high in the kitchen. You don’t want to overcook the turkey. You don’t want it to be dry. What’s the best recipe for stuffing? And just how exactly do you stuff it in there? You know you’re being judged. If it’s not good, they will talk about you. If it’s delicious, they will rave about you. Then the pressure starts. How will you make it this good again next year?! No need to fear, Butterball is here!

The Butterball turkey name was trademarked back in 1940 by Ada Walker. Leo Peters purchased the trademark in 1951 and licensed the name to Swift and Company. Ten years later he sold it to Swift, which was acquired in 1990 by ConAgra. In 2006 ConAgra sold the Butterball brand to Carolina Turkey, making it the largest turkey producer in the United States, producing more than 1 billion pounds of turkey each year. That’s a lot of turkey!

All of that information is nice trivia for your Thanksgiving feast conversation, but what’s more important to the chef of the day is the customer service that Butterball provides with its Butterball Turkey Talk-Line. Back in 1981, Butterball recognized there was an opportunity to deliver a customer experience that would help create recognition and brand loyalty. That year, 11,000 people called. Today, it is expected that more than 100,000 inquiries will be made by panicked customers during the holiday season (just prior to Thanksgiving through Christmas Eve). On Thanksgiving Day alone, the Butterball customer support agents will answer as many as 10,000 questions about how to cook a turkey.

That’s a lot of questions – and a lot of customer support agents needed to answer those questions. How does a company that sells turkeys manage this huge amount of contact center volume? Butterball recently jumped onto the Genesys PureCloud platform, giving it more capability to accommodate this massive spike in customer service volume.

“At Butterball, we take all things turkey seriously. We needed a customer experience platform that could help us achieve our goal of creating the best possible holiday cooking experience for all,” said Pam Barnes, consumer affairs manager at Butterball. “PureCloud enables us to provide better service by offering diversified call options, including self-service features, and a callback function so we can more efficiently help consumers with product questions or cooking advice.”

It’s obvious, Butterball doesn’t just focus on turkeys. It has a true focus on its customers. The people there recognize that their job isn’t just to produce turkey, but to get customers to buy turkeys. And, in addition to creating a good product, they also support their product with good service.

And, while Butterball offers traditional support (1-800-BUTTERBALL), it also knows that today’s customer may not want to use the phone. In the spirit of customer convenience, a customer can connect with the Talk-Line via texting, social media channels, live chat, and even by talking to Amazon’s Alexa. It has accessible hours that include being open on Thanksgiving Day from 6 a.m. to 6 p.m. (Central Standard Time).

There is obviously more to Butterball’s business than holiday turkeys. What they have done is embraced this annual opportunity to connect with customers during a potentially emotional and stressful time. The result is that they endear themselves to their customers.

What lesson can we take from this? You may have an amazing product to offer, but it doesn’t end there. Customers today want and expect good service. The product alone is not enough to win the minds and hearts of your customers – they want to know that you are there for them if they have questions or problems, and that you will help them make the most of your amazing product. So, be accessible, be reachable and support your customers. And … Happy Turkey Day!