Holiday Customer Service Tips from the Movie ‘Elf’

You prob­a­bly know the Christ­mas clas­sic, Elf, star­ring Will Fer­rell. It’s an uplift­ing tale of a human raised by elves who seeks out his real fam­ily, and in the process helps restore people’s faith in Christ­mas. As Buddy the Elf, Fer­rell has some very funny moments. But watch closely. He deliv­ers some great cus­tomer ser­vice tips too.

Keep them in mind this hol­i­day sea­son when you’re serv­ing a ‘bliz­zard’ of stressed-out cus­tomers while simul­ta­ne­ously man­ag­ing a ‘green’ sea­sonal sales force: When in doubt, ask “What would Buddy do?“

1. Greet each cus­tomer with a smile. When asked by the man­ager of Gimbel’s why he’s smil­ing, Buddy answers, “I just like to smile. Smiling’s my favorite.” In cus­tomer ser­vice, a smile is essen­tial whether you’re greet­ing a cus­tomer in per­son or on the phone. (They can hear the smile in your voice.) Start every inter­ac­tion with a smile to show your friend­li­ness, approach­a­bil­ity and inter­est in your customer.
2. Set the stage. “This is the North Pole,” said the Gimbel’s man­ager. “No it’s not; where’s the snow?” asked Buddy. In the movie, Buddy takes it upon him­self to cre­ate the envi­ron­ment that ‘sells’ the cus­tomers on Christ­mas pur­chases. Take a look at your sales environment—whether it’s a phys­i­cal retail space for your cus­tomers or a space where your employ­ees work behind the scenes. Make your space as fes­tive and pro­duc­tive as pos­si­ble, to set the stage for business.
3. Lend a hand. Buddy tries to help every­one he meets. Train your employ­ees to look for ways to help cus­tomers. In the retail envi­ron­ment, that might include pre-wrapping your most pop­u­lar gifts, hold­ing cus­tomer pack­ages in a secure loca­tion, or giv­ing them a com­pli­men­tary bev­er­age or hol­i­day candy. For phone orders, this might include free ship­ping for loyal cus­tomers, shorter wait times or hol­i­day coupons. These lit­tle niceties go a long way toward build­ing cus­tomer loyalty.
4. Match the employee to the job. Buddy was not a good elf. He couldn’t keep up with the other elves on the toy assem­bly line. But he was great at cre­at­ing Christ­mas spirit. If you can match your employ­ees’ strengths to the job, you’ll be amazed at how pro­duc­tive they will be.
5. Train employ­ees to han­dle stress­ful sit­u­a­tions. Not every cus­tomer will be in a hol­i­day mood. In fact, many will be over­whelmed with hol­i­day stress. It will be impor­tant to teach employ­ees how to engage cus­tomers to make the shop­ping expe­ri­ence as seam­less as possible.
6. Make fam­ily impor­tant. Wal­ter, Buddy’s bio­log­i­cal dad, even­tu­ally does the right thing by choos­ing fam­ily over a bul­ly­ing boss. Your employ­ees have fam­i­lies too. And you could be ask­ing them to work long, and often incon­ve­nient, hours dur­ing the hol­i­day sea­son. Let their fam­i­lies know you appre­ci­ate their loved ones by send­ing a note home to thank them for allow­ing the fam­ily mem­ber to con­tribute to the company’s suc­cess. This will help build employee loy­alty.
7. Thank your employ­ees. Buddy’s younger brother Michael thanked Buddy for help­ing him defeat a gang of bul­lies in a snow­ball fight. What have your employ­ees helped you to do? Be sure to thank them. Post­ing a thank you bul­letin board is one way com­pa­nies pub­licly acknowl­edge employ­ees’ efforts.

Pre­dict a happy end­ing. The movie Elf ends hap­pily ever after. Your sales sea­son can too. Ensure that by incor­po­rat­ing sales incen­tives, whether it’s bonus pay or gifts. Most of today’s sea­sonal employ­ees are the gen­er­a­tion of “Mil­len­ni­als,” and they appre­ci­ate incen­tive pay.