As the holiday season quickly approaches, now is the time to prepare your business and your employees for the chaos that comes with the holidays. While it may seem too soon – holiday music hasn’t even begun to play! – consumers are starting their holiday shopping earlier and earlier. Make sure your business is prepped and ready this year so that you can tackle the season of shopping without all the stress. Here are four tips to help you prepare your small business for the holiday rush:
1. Be sure your website is up-to-date: As more and more consumers do their shopping online, it’s extremely important that your website be user friendly and frequently updated. Even if you don’t offer online shopping, your customers will most likely be checking your website for holiday promotions and special store hours. Take the time now to make sure your website is in tip-top shape, on the surface and underneath. If your website crashes due to increased traffic and transactions, you could lose a lot of potential of sales.
2. Prepare your staff: For some small businesses, the holiday season is the busiest and most important season. Schedule a short training with your staff members to help them feel prepared – go over how to manage a rush, and emphasize the importance of great customer service. This will make a huge difference to both your employees and stressed out holiday shoppers. If you have a small staff year-round, it may be beneficial to hire a few temporary staff members to help manage the rush.
3. Join in the spirit: Along with exemplary customer service, creating a festive and inviting atmosphere for your shoppers this season is an important step that many businesses skip. Decorate your storefront with wreaths or snowflakes and provide Santa hats for your staff to wear. Consider a fun holiday promotional sale to help bring in savvy shoppers or give away candy canes and tissue paper with each purchase.
4. Organize your stock room: There is nothing worse than searching through a messy stock room when you have impatient customers waiting out front. With the influx of holiday shoppers on the horizon, it’s important that your business is not only stocked up and organized, but that it stays that way throughout the season. If you plan to participate in Black Friday or offer special discounts, be sure to order extra stock of your most popular items. Ask your staff members to take time at the end of each day to reorganize the stock room so that merchandise is easy to find and items up front can be quickly replaced when they’re needed.
Telhio Credit Union has a variety of business products and services, such as checking accounts, lines of credit or business loans that can help your business succeed through any storm. To contact a member of Telhio’s business services team, call 614-221-3233, option 6.
Telhio is open to anyone who lives, works, worships or goes to school in Franklin, Fairfield, Delaware, Licking, Marion, Pickaway and Union counties. Founded in 1934, originally as the credit union for the Columbus Telephone Co., Telhio is a not-for-profit financial cooperative where its members are also its owners. Driven by its philosophy that members come first, Telhio is committed to the highest standards of responsibility and conduct. Telhio offers – branching offices throughout central Ohio and nearly 4,000 shared branching locations nationwide. Additionally, Telhio credit union participates in the highest level of combined federal and private share savings insurance available, insuring deposit accounts up to $500,000.*
* Federally insured by NCUA. Additional coverage up to $250,000 provided by Excess Share Insurance Corporation, a licensed insurance company.
