An un­for­get­table cus­tomer ex­pe­ri­ence. This is what the biggest sale should be for any busi­ness in T&T that is sell­ing mer­chan­dise and hop­ing for big wins this Christ­mas. Long af­ter the rush fades and the fes­tiv­i­ties end, the re­al ques­tion will be, “What last­ing mem­o­ry will cus­tomers car­ry about your busi­ness?” Es­pe­cial­ly those first-time shop­pers.

Every­one loves a good bar­gain and prices that make gift giv­ing eas­i­er, but there is a fea­ture that out­weighs cost every time. How cus­tomers feel when they in­ter­act with a busi­ness. Too of­ten, the Christ­mas sea­son se­duces cus­tomers with shiny dis­plays and the emo­tion­al pull of the hol­i­days. In the ur­gency of the mo­ment, many tol­er­ate cracks in the trans­ac­tion process.

Busi­ness­es walk away pleased with their rev­enue, while cus­tomers walk away mak­ing men­tal notes about who has earned a place on their naughty list and in the “no fu­ture pa­tron­age” league.

The busi­ness­es that in­tend to make this their best Christ­mas ever, would have pre­pared long be­fore the start of the sea­son. Many would have in­vest­ed in sea­son­al “top-up” train­ing to keep em­ploy­ees sharp dur­ing one of the busiest pe­ri­ods of the year. These are the busi­ness­es that choose to place their rev­enue in the hands of cus­tomer care and not “cus­tomer care­less” prac­tices.

Cus­tomer care at Christ­mas should feel rich­er and more in­ten­tion­al. This is the sea­son when good­will, in both its gen­uine and its per­for­ma­tive forms, cir­cu­lates wide­ly.

It’s the sea­son, as well, when Christ­mas care pairs nat­u­ral­ly with Christ­mas cheer. Even if a busi­ness has stum­bled through­out the year, this is the mo­ment to step up the qual­i­ty and the quan­ti­ty of care, so that cus­tomers feel a no­tice­able dif­fer­ence.

Lag­gard busi­ness­es should use this sea­son to piv­ot away from slop­py, hit-and-miss ser­vice and be­gin the process of shap­ing a rep­u­ta­tion for a dif­fer­en­ti­at­ed cus­tomer ex­pe­ri­ence. The shift does not need to be mas­sive. It sim­ply needs to be de­lib­er­ate and dis­tinc­tive enough for cus­tomers to no­tice.

Some­times the shift can be one, sin­gle fea­ture, with which every em­ploy­ee be­comes com­pli­ant. It bears re­peat­ing, for those busi­ness­es that be­lieve a well-stocked shelf, over­flow­ing with prod­ucts that sell them­selves, equals good ser­vice. That ap­proach may open a cus­tomer’s wal­let tem­porar­i­ly, but it will not win his or her heart, nor prompt keen­ness to re­peat pur­chase, in the long term.

Every point of con­tact, whether hu­man or dig­i­tal, should of­fer an emo­tion­al lift. Our lo­cal cul­tur­al warmth is al­ways on dis­play at this time of year, through mu­sic and en­ter­tain­ment, but re­ly­ing on cul­tur­al charm, with­out equal ef­fort to en­sure a smooth shop­ping ex­pe­ri­ence, will back­fire.

Busi­ness­es must find ways to ease or elim­i­nate the usu­al stres­sors of the sea­son. Lines will be long, so the check­out sys­tem should be sim­pli­fied with ex­press lanes and hand­held pay­ment de­vices. Floor staff should be knowl­edge­able and able to think crit­i­cal­ly, so chal­lenges can be re­solved quick­ly and skill­ful­ly.

Con­sis­tent­ly great out­comes re­quire strength­en­ing the sup­port sys­tems that sit be­hind the cus­tomer jour­ney. This is the op­er­a­tional ma­chin­ery that makes the front-end smiles pos­si­ble. The usu­al pain points of the sea­son are well known. Miss­ing or in­ac­cu­rate prices. Slow check­out sys­tems. In­suf­fi­cient floor as­sis­tance. Sticky pay­ment process­es and slow com­plaint res­o­lu­tion. Why not plan to elim­i­nate these fail­ures this year?

This is al­so the sea­son when cus­tomer com­plaints rise. Busi­ness­es that pre­pared well would have ac­ti­vat­ed their is­sues mit­i­ga­tion and sit­u­a­tion­al man­age­ment sys­tems, com­mu­ni­cat­ed these plans to em­ploy­ees and would be en­joy­ing smoother cus­tomer flows at this time. Those that have not yet done so should brace them­selves. Bumps are ahead.

For the busi­ness­es that are se­ri­ous about win­ning both the wal­lets and the hearts of cus­tomers this sea­son, here is the charge.

This Christ­mas, go be­yond sim­ply sell­ing prod­ucts. Sell care. Sell ease. Sell joy. Make cus­tomer care your best-sell­ing item. Then, if you’re dili­gent about sus­tain­ing the mo­men­tum, watch the mag­ic spill in­to 2026 and be­yond.