How to improve your business by being miserable at Christmas

If you’re like me then you’re not looking forward to pushing your way through the hordes of people desperate to do their last minute Christmas shopping, waiting patiently in line for 15 minutes for a drink, or sitting in seemingly endless traffic jams to return home from a trip you didn’t want to do in the first place.

So if you’re going to be grumpy, why not be constructively-grumpy?

That’s right, the grumpier you become the more constructive you can be…

When you’re grumpy you criticise and moan about everything, the slightest little thing will annoy you, and for someone to enter your world and make you smile, or at least not enrage you, they need to do everything perfectly. You have the same gripes as you do in everyday life, just all turbo-charged as its Christmas.

So when something annoys you have a good think as to what’s annoying you, and whether it can relate to your business.

For example if you’re in a coffee shop for a few minutes and the waiter doesn’t even acknowledge you’re there, then ask yourself if you acknowledge your own customers. Do you ping them an email saying you’ll be dealing with their enquiry later on that day?

So the waiter in the coffee shop does get around to serving you… eventually, but he’s had an awful day, and doesn’t smile. He just goes through the process, does what he should do, but you seem like too much hassle for him, and that makes you grumpy again. Think back to your business, do your staff smile and stay happy with your customers, even after a long day with a tricky client?

You get fed up with shops, and decide to stay in the coffee shop and find your last few gifts online whilst drinking your cappuccino. Frustration again, as the website takes far too long to load, you can’t find what you’re looking, it doesn’t look right on your phone, and even if you did you can’t figure out whether the presents you’re buying will be here in time for Christmas. Again, look at your own website, can people find what they’re looking for, does it load fast and work on mobiles? If not, someone may be getting just as frustrated with you.

For those without an online shop it’s still worth remembering that people still go to your website with an agenda, and still expect things to work in a certain way.

I guess the moral here is to make sure that your customers’ whole experience with your business is as efficient and trouble-free as possible; from their initial search (whether that be in a shopping centre or Google), through to their buying or information gathering, to the overall customer support. They could be having a bad day their end and even the slightest thing that you do wrong could be an issue. Putting yourselves in their shoes when you’re being grumpy is a good way to test what you have.

Imagine your customers are grumpier than you, what could you be doing to annoy them, and most importantly, what adjustments can you make next year to make things run smoother?

Of course, we don’t want you to suck eggs when it comes to business, but when it comes to the website and online marketing aspects of your business, we’re always here to help and can play devil’s advocate for you.

As a final note, I’m not really that grumpy, I admit I’m not a fan of the shopping and queues, but I’m really looking forward to some time with my family and especially my son, Maximus.

We are Webbed Feet ^UK, and we’d love to wish everyone a really Quacky Christmas.