Businesses of all sizes can feel the pressure of Christmas time, with increased website traffic, sales and promotions, and influxes of sales. To avoid mishaps with customer enquiries or inventory issues, it’s important to be prepared. Here are some tips to “Contain The Chaos” this Christmas season, and every other year.

Prioritise Customer Support

The quality of your customer service can make or break your business, regardless of how busy the time is. During Christmas, you’re likely to receive an influx of customer enquiries about product availability, shipping times, operating hours, and the list goes on. Customers need timely and accurate information, which means it is essential to have a top-quality customer service team and plan. To manage the incoming enquiries, prepare your team with additional training for any holiday promotions, additional staff working at any one time, or set-up automations for chatbots where possible.

If your company requires additional staff during busy times or year round, MVP has a team of qualified offshore customer support specialists.

Roster Appropriately

Having a reliable and trustworthy team makes all the difference when operating in busy periods. Employees may request time off during the Christmas season, which could be disruptive to workflow if not properly managed. It’s important to manage work expectations and to prepare your work rosters effectively to reduce any disruptions to work tasks. A top tip to managing rosters, is to set an early cut-off date for requesting time off, which can help you to more effectively delegate tasks and deadlines.

An offshore administration assistant can help with the organisation of employees and continuity of important work tasks during busy periods.

Manage Inventory

If your business sells products, it’s a top priority to ensure you have the right amount of stock to satisfy your customers’ needs. This can be a difficult task, as it’s important to find the balance between not having enough stock to fulfil customer orders and to not stock too much that you lose money. A great way to prepare your stock is to evaluate previous years’ sales to make an accurate forecast. Overstocking is more ideal than understocking, as you can benefit from festive promotions, which can increase sales.

Update Your Digital Presence

Online shopping has grown year on year, especially during and following the pandemic. With this in mind, your business should be evaluating its current online presence. If you aren’t online already, is this a viable and beneficial option for your business? If you are online already, what is the user experience like? Make sure any appealing promotions are displayed and advertised to help increase sales and ensure it’s easy for customers to know how to purchase your products and services. An easy tip is to keep your social media presence updated and optimised for any festive promotions and have your website up-to-date.

If your business is ready to make or improve an online presence, consider offshoring your web development needs.

Manage Cash Flow

An essential part of your business operations is a well-managed and well-planned cash flow. Your company may need to budget for extra marketing, website development, increased amounts of inventory, or festive celebrations. This can make the holiday season pricey, so it’s important to have a thorough budget in place. An easy-to-implement budget tip is to have an extensive Spreadsheet of all upcoming expenses and predicted revenues to easily identify any areas which may be problematic.

An offshore accountant can help keep your business’ cash flow well-balanced in even the busiest and most unpredictable periods. 

Embrace The Festive Spirit

Though the holidays can be stressful for a lot of businesses, they are also a fun and festive time. With effective planning and organising, you can Contain The Chaos during this busy period. Most importantly, though, remember to take some time to celebrate the holidays with your staff and loyal customers.