Change in Traffic? Keep Calm and Investigate

Recently I witnessed something amazing that happened to a company I work with. The company was a topic of a conversation on a national radio show. The results of a small company covered over a national radio show are enormous. Traffic grew 100 times. Transactions were pouring in and the lines at the company were off the hook.
All this was great until we scheduled an early meeting for the next morning. The person in charge of transactions listed them in a very bad formation and created a very unpleasant show for the executives. Just to clarify, this was a huge milestone for the company and there was no room for messing up.
It's the company has the responsibility to not ruin a sell. This means that the company should have done everything it can in order to give customers an easy experience and be ready to scale.



This wasn't the case in our situation.

Needless to say the employee who displayed bad form was replaced the next day.

That's what I want to talk about. The next day. An experienced professional was brought in to replace the employee. This professional had more experience and was very highly qualified. This is great right?

Not so sure.

After the peak following the radio show there was a decline in traffic. That professional found himself with a lot of spare time on his hands. To bring in this professional the company had to pay more and now has dead weight on it's hands. It is true that planning ahead is crucial and the company shouldn't wait to fail to make changes rather planning ahead.

Once the traffic was back down the company was substantially over paying for its employees.

There is no correct way in this situation although taking the time to understand the future of your business is a must before any dramatic changes. Ask yourself where your business is going? If this traffic will stay constant or will it change?
Define your concerns. Communicate to your employees what the new standards are. Take the time to train and mentor them to handle this situation.

Think thoroughly prior to any dramatic changes you might execute in your company.

Think ahead. Plan accordingly. Don't let yourself get caught surprised.

If the traffic increases - investigate and try to determine why this happened. From there be sure to be able to supply this demand.
Decrease in traffic? Also investigate and start coming up with some creative ideas to reduce user churn.