It’s important to be well prepared before the holiday seasons arrive. The old Five Ps adage applies – perfect planning prevents poor performance.

Christmas cheer
The festive season, for example, comes upon us usually when we are dying for a break and for those businesses not in retail, where staff can take holidays, a bit of lateral thinking makes smart business sense. The thinking should be applied to the all-important areas of customer service, staff management and supplier management.

An expensive day off
The handling of this unusual business experience should be easier if you have traded through or closed down over the holiday period before. However, that doesn’t mean you’ve done it right in the past.

You might not know if you lost business because the person who rang on January 2 – when you took the Friday off since New Year’s Day fell on a Thursday – never rang back.

Not only was he going to be a customer worth $100,000 a year profit but he was in a network of fast-pace growth businesses. He is now out there referring the business he finally went to, when you weren’t there!

Be prepared
The bottom line is that you have to plan for this period and, of course, it means you need to have systems in place to handle not only the expected but also the unexpected.

Desperate calls
Let’s start with the closed-down operation. It’s obvious this business needs to tap into the telecommunications options that are available. The reality is that anyone ringing up over the festive period probably is desperate for supplies or service. They could be in the building sector where supplies or services could be vital to honouring a contract.

Early warning
It would be smart to consider emailing or mailing to current customers informing them of the times you plan to close your business down. This is a courtesy call and it not only shows you are a caring supplier but you are giving them an alert if they need to order more of your goods or services before Christmas.

An out-of-business plan
Betsy Anne Sanders, former CEO of the US firm Nordstroms, was famous for customer service. A few years ago she told Australian audiences that anyone committed to growing a winning business has to anticipate their customers’ needs.

This commitment will help you draw up your out-of-business plan.

Get the message across
Your customers could be serviced by an ‘Out of Office’ automatic replay to emails, which reminds customers and tells new ones when you are back on deck. A special answering machine message should be planned which gives dates for the break, emergency contact number if you really are into customer service and you might even pay for messages to be taken by a message service with real people.

Hire a specialist
It would not hurt to go to a telecommunications expert to find out what options are available. We should cultivate people who we trust, who work in specialised areas such as IT, accounting, telecommunications, etc, who can tell us what’s cutting edge, productive and economical.

Assume nothing
Being time-poor and being unwilling to talk to experts can make you poorer in money terms.

For those trading over the holiday period, assume nothing. Make sure crucial suppliers know what your expectations are and if need be get written undertakings that you’ll be receiving deliveries. This is a perfect time to make a list of things that could go wrong and then ensure you have these vulnerable bases covered.

Staff awareness
For staff, managing their expectations is important. Many small firms have encountered problems with staff around the festive period because of poor communication. It has also underlined the problem of not having a written contract between you and your staff.

Calling a meeting after informing everyone in writing about your Christmas trading plans is a good idea. Many employers and employees do not get their entitlements and responsibilities. The mixture of public holidays, holiday leave loadings and staff managing their families’ expectations means that you have to inform your staff as early as possible about your trading plans.
Addressing the issue early gives you plenty of time to arrange a temporary replacement if need be.

Is everybody happy?
Failure to plan for this all-important time might not only mean you lose customers, you could also lose staff! And wouldn’t that be a great start to a new year?

One final advice
If these recommendations have you thinking, well, think a little bit more. The difference between a good and bad business is often linked to the systems put into place to handle all sorts of situations.

An effective system developed to handle the holidays makes you and your business more professional and hopefully more profitable. If you haven’t already done it, give you business a present for the New Year – create systems to cover all aspects of your business. Your business will love you for it and will reward you accordingly.

By Peter Switzer, published on 7/04/2009

COMMENTS