As I started thinking about the upcoming busy holiday season, I thought about how busy good old St. Nick is quickly going to become. And that, inevitably, raised the question — wouldn’t his life be much easier with a live answering service?

There’s no question he needs 24/7 phone answering, but he also needs more than simple message taking. Imagine the variety of call protocols he’d have to have.

  • Is someone calling about the availability of a specific toy? That would need to get to the right elf. Customer service of the highest priority.
  • Maybe Blake or Brenda are unsure whether they’re on the naughty or nice list. That would obviously have to go to someone pretty high up in North Pole management. And the agent handling those calls would have to be sympathetic but always in control of the conversation.
  • What about questions on cookie preferences? If you want to score points with Santa, it’s a good idea to have his favorites on the plate. That call might have to go to Mrs. Claus or whoever she decides to have on call each day. Or maybe the call protocol changes daily to reflect Santa’s current choice.

And what about incoming information? Santa must have a standing order for weather updates starting on Dec. 23 or Dec. 24. That info needs to get to him immediately. Wouldn’t text messaging be perfect so he could be up to date throughout his delivery schedule?

Of course, bilingual services — or more appropriately, multi-lingual services — would be a huge help. Though I’m not sure any call answering service could provide coverage for as many languages as the variety of callers Santa gets.

So after thinking about it, maybe my holiday prep work isn’t quite as overwhelming as I was thinking. After all, I get a couple of e-mails, a few phone calls and some lists to work from. I don’t need multi-lingual services or call protocols. And thank goodness — I don’t need 24/7 coverage!

I think I’ll leave the worldwide present-delivery business in Santa’s capable hands this year — but I’d be more than happy to tell him how Alert Communications’ answering services can lighten the load for him next year.

Frances Starr, Director of Sales & Marketing for Alert Communications. Alert Communications is a 24/7 bilingual inbound call center, specializing in professional attorney answering, virtual receptionist, Spanish answering and business answering solutions.