The holidays are an intense time for businesses, it’s no secret. While the start of the big holiday boom is still a few weeks away, it’s prudent to start planning now to avoid being unprepared.
Take care of your to-do list
If there are changes to your website you need to make, implementing an inventory tracking system, bringing in third-party marketing and advertising help, do it now. For starters, this frees you up to focus on the holiday rush. Secondly, having some of these business improvement goals in practice during a high-volume shopping season will help things go more smoothly and potentially bring in more customers.
Plan your holiday marketing
While the holiday season is stressful, it’s a golden opportunity for business owners to see a major increase in profit. You don’t want to miss out on that opportunity. Market your business specifically to holiday shopping. And the best way to do that is to start with a plan. Look at what your customers bought most last year and explore new trends on social media. Using email, social media, direct mail or local ads, start advertising your business and any promotions you have planned for the holiday season, such as giveaways or special discounts.
Consider seasonal workers
If you need help manning your storefront, consider hiring seasonal workers. This is an incredibly common practice and it helps take a lot of pressure of your full-time employees. If you choose this option, make sure you have an ample training period for your seasonal workers and that you are screening the right employees during the recruiting process.
Monitor vacation requests
Employees want to be able to celebrate the holidays, too. But you have to make sure that your business is fully staffed at all times. Whether this means freezing vacation requests during a certain time period, or only allowing one person off per day, you need to establish this policy and communicate it to your employees.
Consider extra help with call answering
If you expect to be extremely busy running, staffing and marketing your business during the holiday season, it might be wise to consider a live answering service. By freeing you from the phone lines, you’ll be able to focus on the holiday madness. Even when the holidays have died down, there are so many benefits to having an answering service. Live virtual receptionists can take over the administrative duties of answering and forwarding calls, taking and sending messages, as well as other features such as setting appointments and processing orders.
Top-rated live answering service
VoiceNation is here to help. Our industry leading live answering service has helped thousands of businesses grow. Sign up for a plan and your account will be instantly activated, which means our operators will start answering right away. We’ll take your messages and send them to you immediately through our online dashboard and free mobile app. Want to learn more? Give us a call! 877.679.3777.