Stomp Competition with Excellent Holiday Service

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Well, it’s officially Black Friday.  Some people love it.  Some people hate it.  Either way, everyone and their dog is looking for an excellent deal.  Black Friday is the day I officially mark as a key time to prep your employees to provide excellent customer service for the holidays.

Here’s why it’s critical to crack the whip on red carpet service:

1.  The Holiday season = the biggest buying season of the year, which can mean huge profit potential for your business.

2.  Customers are stressed out.  They want to find the perfect gift at the perfect price.  Get a reputation for providing both of those AND a perfect buying experience and you won’t be hurting for more customers.

3.  People will remember you for either the good or bad experience they just had.  How would you like to be remembered?

If you’re a business owner or corporation, consider doing the following to stand apart from your competition this holiday season:

1. Provide every one who walks through the door a bottle of water or have free water on site.

2. Partner with a local restaurant or fast-food chain and provide 50% off lunch coupons.

3.  Make sure you’ve got modern music playing.  Music has been proven to affect moods.  Just because it’s the season, doesn’t mean you have to play ONLY holiday music.  Provide a variety and play music that caters to your market.

4.  Turn on your air conditioner.  Although the temperatures are dropping outside, when you cram several hundred people in one store, it gets hot.  And when people get hot – they get mad.

Here are a few tips for online business owners:

1.  Offer sales for the entire holiday season.  Many e-commerce sites will compete for business – we have less loyalty to most sites and more loyalty to the best price.

2.  Always offer free shipping on ALL ORDERS.  Not everyone is offering this, but if you can, it will make you stand out.  People LOVE getting something for free.

3.  Offer customers a $5 off coupon for referring your site to friends.

No matter what kind of business you own – above all – make sure that who ever is at the front lines engaging with your customers is chipper, friendly, helpful, honest, and fast.