With less than five months to go before the holidays are here – and just months before the Web is abuzz with bargain hunters – e-tailers are gearing up to get their sites in order. But given the country’s economic uncertainty and the fact that we’re already more than halfway through the year, what can merchants do today to boost holiday sales without major Web site investments?

At this point in the year, Web sellers are looking for “quick wins” that will help increase their key performance metrics (such as page views, conversion rates, order values and repeat purchases). Click to call and automated recommendations are two Web site wins that take only a matter of weeks to implement, yet can deliver a significant, rapid payback. We’ve noticed an uptick in interest in these products at ATG, so I thought I’d spend a minute outlining what they are and how they can help you close more holiday sales.

Let’s start with click to call. Web stores without click to call force users to search for a 1-800 number to get a live voice on the phone to help them. Even when they can find the number, shoppers may then have to wade through a sea of options, only to be put on hold and connected to an agent a few minutes later who knows nothing about them. This slow, impersonal experience might explain why conversion rates for Web callers into a 1-800 number can be quite low.

Click to call instantly bridges the online shopper to a live agent without forcing them to search for a number or wait on hold. Advanced solutions like ATG’s eStara Click to Call can be offered proactively only to shoppers who are having trouble or have high-value carts, and can show the agent exactly where the customer is shopping on the store. Our experience shows that click to call, when implemented proactively and integrated with existing contact center systems, can produce conversion rates of 35 percent or more. And, because click to call interactions are more personal, they are shorter than standard 1-800 number calls, helping to drive down contact center costs.

Recommendations tools are another holiday “must” for e-tailers looking to take advantage of the holiday surge. In fact, according to our research, shoppers who interact with automated recommendations during a session convert up to 300 percent more often and spend up to 30 percent more than those who don’t.

The key is to find a recommendations solution that can not only automate cross-sells, but let you quickly add more personalized merchandise to your online store in time for the holidays. Imagine a gift guide that is dynamic, personalized and completely automated so that it can help buyers find the right gifts based on their shopping activity and previous purchases. Or, imagine a top-sellers section that dynamically changes based on each shopper’s browsing behavior. Recommendations engines that empower online merchants to “refine” automation with their control can be used to build these value-added solutions quickly and without a lot of work. The result? Higher page views and higher conversions.

Signs are pointing to brighter economic conditions. Let’s hope that when the holiday season arrives, online consumers are ready once again to open their wallets. Adding click to call and recommendations to your online store now can help give your shoppers that extra guidance or advice they need to find and buy more products on Black Friday and Cyber Monday. They might even buy an accessory or two.