The silly season is here.
What are you doing to make sure that your business is ready to benefit from the usual increase in demand at this time of year? Do you have the right people, processes and technology in place to deliver a great customer experience? How will you make your marketing work for you?
1. Train the people that serve your customers!
The busiest time of year is not the time to be hiring untrained people to serve your customers! Regardless of the nature of your business, all customers seek a smooth, simple and pleasant customer experience when buying from you. Hiring cheap but unengaged and/or untrained temporary staff to meet the increased demand is a common but costly mistake. Can you seriously afford to lose even one customer in the current economic climate?
Spend the time and money necessary to find the right people and train them in your service ethos, your processes and your technology to protect your brand.
2. Market, market, market
The customer wallet is getting ever thinner, so to get your share of it, you must be top of mind. Engage with customers (new, potential, and old) to remind them about your business and what it offers. Social media is a useful and inexpensive marketing tool… if you do it well. Click here to download our free SimplyBiz Social Media Marketing Toolkit. Update your website and social media spaces with relevant content for the festive season and use hashtags effectively. Offer festive season competitions and special offers to raise your visibility and engagement while customers are more receptive.
3. Put your people first
Focus on keeping your people motivated and performing at their best during peak seasons. They’re only human too and need acknowledgment as well as rewards. Try to involve your team in the planning and seek their ideas on how to increase customer service and sales while avoiding burnout. Spread the season of goodwill internally and meaningfully. Employees who feel that their families and their communities are important to the business are more engaged and productive. The customer’s experience is only as good as your unhappiest employee.
4. Make sure your processes and technology are working smoothly!
How often have you tried to buy something online or waited in a queue only to find that the system is glitching, so you abandon the cart? The mantra – if it can go wrong, it will go wrong is useful to remember in planning for busy periods. What are your backups? Are your staff trained and authorised to implement them? Do you have adequate tech support? Click here to view the Operations and Admin Tech Stack.
Author: Janet Askew
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