With the holiday season upon us, holiday shoppers are looking for gifts for their loved ones, which translates into many SMEs encountering a boom in traffic so it’s important to maintain an amazing customer service experience during the rush.

These tips can help your business deliver a level of service that is sure to have your customers coming back for more once the holiday rush has settled.

Holiday pre-planning

The best chance a business has to react positively to the surge in traffic is to review past holiday seasons and forecast the estimated number of customers. Based on these estimations, they can better plan employee shifts to meet consumer demand and if needed the use of temporary holiday staffing or even re-purposing staff roles can also assist with the demand. Pre-planning will allow your team to be flexible enough to react to the increase in traffic, so that the surge won’t catch your business off guard.

The guided purchase

At times it’s up to you as a business owner or manager to decide what products to emphasize in your holiday marketing campaign. There might be certain products with lower turn around and less hassle in your supply chain which you know won’t bring about problems during the rushed deadlines of the holiday. Thus focusing marketing campaigns whether online or in store, can help position those products as the ‘deal of the season’. Large clothing retailers often do this with their display showcases to move the products they intend to move the most.

[Related: Office interiors: Why it matters for your business]

Keep it seasonal

It’s important to add an element of personality to your default messages or branding during the holiday season. Seasonal branding is an opportunity to show off some of your brand’s personality and reach out to clients in a cheerful tone that can be memorable if executed correctly.

Holiday help

Many times setting up a Holiday or Seasonal FAQ to convey frequently asked questions that potential customers can review on their own not only allows them to find the answers to their questions but also allows them to do so in a manner that doesn’t burden your team.

Always keep in mind, expect the unexpected. Your supplier or courier service might not deliver as promised, so always be ready to service your clients and find a solution to their problems; look at each of these unexpected problems as an opportunity to win over lifetime clients.

Mehrad Yaghmai is the founder of Customyze.co & Fenumbra. He also serves as the Managing Director for Power of Art, where he advises and consults startups, SMEs and entrepreneurs.

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