“Tis the season” doesn’t have quite the same ring when you’re going on no sleep and trying to deal with stressed-out employees and/or customers. The holidays are a time to step up, not a time to slump to the ground at the end of each workday.

So what do you need to think about now to avoid this scenario? Two major things: little helpers and your workshops. We’ll start with the hard one.

Little Helpers, i.e. employees. If you have none, you might need some. And if you already have some, you might need more. Here are some questions to ask yourself to help you determine if you need another body or bodies to help you handle the season.

Are you ready for more calls?

If you take calls, have your employees keep track of the number of calls per day and duration of each for a week or two. Then ask yourself if your current employees can handle double that volume?

If the answer is either no or “but that’s all they will have time to do”, you want to think about getting help or set up with a call center for the season.

You do not have to continue using them once your business returns to normal volume if you don’t want.

If you currently use a call center…give them a call! Ask for more operators if you need them. Be sure to do this before things start to get busy. If you wait, the service center may not have as many operators available.

Do you run extended holiday hours?

I would recommend that you do!

Remember, this is a stressful time of year for shoppers. No one wants to be the one person whose present is still in the mail, and they typically get less friendly with each voice mail or e-mail they send that doesn’t get answered until the next day.

Angry customers around this time of year exponentially add to your stress levels. Offering more opportunities for them to contact you, gives you happier customers and employees.

If you can talk your current staff into extended hours, awesome. If not, getting another person or a call center to handle the extra time. Even if the call operators cannot answer specific order questions, your customers will be happier that they are leaving a message with a human rather than an automated message system.

Will you be open weekends?

As with extended hours, I recommend weekend hours during the holidays. If a customer has a product question on Saturday do you think they’ll patiently wait until Monday for an answer? No, they’ll go to whichever competitor can answer them first.

Rules change during this season. Whoever provides the best service not only wins the holiday sale, they will also have a higher chance of winning any repeat business that comes from that customer.

It is important to have someone who is knowledgeable enough about your products to be able to answer questions. So in this case I recommend having an actual employee working on the weekend, and not just a call center. Your need to available to your employees in case they get a question beyond their ability to answer.

After answering these you should have a good idea whether or not you need a new hire.

What should your new temp be able to do?

Your new temp needs to be able to do more than answer the phone and take orders; you can get a call center operator to do that for much less. Your temp should take more of the burden off your regular staff.

I require a basic knowledge of what my stores sell, the ability to quickly navigate the sites to find information, and a flexible schedule to work nights and/or weekends.

This is stuff I expect them to pick up and be fairly competent at within one week. They need to learn the basic skills it takes to service customers, my current employees can handle all the brainy stuff.

What about your workshop?

In other words, making sure your vendors are set to service you the best way they can. That means you need to get on the phone and talk to them.

Ask what products they have the better stock on and what stock is going to look like in the coming months. Add the products with a lot of stock to your gift and holiday pages and promote them. As long as you know it to be true, you can advertise “In stock and ready to ship!” Also find out what products have low or no stock. Don’t spend time advertising these since there is a good chance they won’t be available.

You could also pre-order extra quantities of your bestsellers. Every year I get a list of my top 5 to 10 bestsellers and buy them in bulk before the season hits. This way I can keep advertising them as in stock after my competitors use up the vendors’ stock. An added benefit to this is that buying bulk is cheaper than dropshipping single items so you’re making extra pro?t, which is always welcome. Before you do this, make sure it fits your budget.

If it comes down to buying stock or doing more paid advertising, go for the ads. You also have to think about storing the products. Some vendors may hold and ship the products, bulk orders. Not all vendors will do this and some will do it only for customers who bring them a certain amount of business.

Increased holiday business is awesome. Just make sure you have the people and resources in place to handle it…otherwise it can turn the best season of the year into a nightmare of stress and frustration. Luckily, some simple analysis and a few calls can keep the holiday ‘jolly’.

Holiday Preparation:

• Tally your calls and their duration; factor the holiday rush into it to determine whether you need extra hands to handle calls.
• Decide what your extended holiday hours are going to be and who is going to work those hours for you.
• Determine your weekend hours and who is going to work those.
• Hire a temp or a call center to ?ll in any holes in your holiday business plan.
• Call your vendors and talk to them about stock.
• Pre-order quantities of best sellers to make more profit.
• Enjoy the holiday rush

Extracted from StomperNet SEO Intelligence Report, October 28, 2011.