It’s that special season again: the season of crowded stores, whiny kids, irritable customers, and stressed-out employees. If you’re a business owner—in any industry but especially in retail—the holidays are a precarious time. When fuses are short and wallets are shrinking, customers expect great service. Fail to provide it, or fail to instantly implement a recovery plan on those occasions when you do drop the ball, and you may find yourself experiencing a not-so-merry 2011.

Every business owner knows things will go wrong from time to time; it’s how you handle these episodes that counts. And during the holidays, the stakes are higher. People have higher expectations and a lower tolerance for mistakes. Combine that with distracted employees and larger-than-usual crowds, and you have the makings for the perfect winter storm, so to speak. Without a good service-recovery plan, you can easily lose the disgruntled customer, everyone she knows, and possibly a lot of people she doesn’t know if she takes her tale to cyberspace.

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