With Christmas approaching, preparing your business for the festivities can be overwhelming. Although it’s an exciting time of year, for business owners it can be difficult to organise effectively.
At Chrome, we understand the importance of preparing for the Christmas break. From on-hold marketing to updating our website, we communicate any changes to our customers in advance.
We’ve put together five steps you can take to prepare your business for Christmas, and the New Year.
Confirm your opening hours and update your website
Firstly, you need to decide which days you’ll be closed over Christmas. Of course, for some businesses it’s not possible for teams to take a full ten days off work. Still, even if you’ll only be closed on bank holidays, you need to prepare.
At Chrome, our last working day is on Christmas Eve, and we return to the office on the 4th of January. This gives our team the opportunity to take a break and have some well-earned family time.
Whilst our office is closed, we will have a team available to assist with any emergencies. If you do experience any emergency issues over this period simply give us a call and leave a voicemail. We will pick this up and contact you to resolve your query.
Once you’ve decided when you’ll be closed, you now need to give this information to your customers. A great way to do this is by updating your website with your opening hours. If you’re present on social media you should also share a post to give this information.
If your business doesn’t have an online presence, then you can go back to basics with physical marketing materials. This can be done by creating leaflets or flyers to hand out to your customers, or even post to them.
Set up on-hold marketing
An effective way to ensure that your customers are updated is through on-hold marketing. Whilst your customers are on hold, they can listen to customised messages giving important information. On-hold marketing is a great way of sharing company updates all year round. These updates can include new launches or advise of your website being down.
At Chrome we provide bespoke on-hold marketing for our customers. Once we’ve received the information that you’d like communicated, we’ll prepare a customised script. When it’s approved, it’ll be set up on your system and played to your customers. If you would like to learn more about on-hold marketing then get in touch today to speak with our experts.
Prepare on-call staff with remote access
Over the festive period, you may decide to have certain team members available for emergency situations. Some companies may even decide to have their whole team working remotely over Christmas. It’s important that these colleagues can access files remotely and communicate with each other.
True remote working is enabled by a high-performing business communication system. With a cloud-based system from Chrome, hybrid working between home and the office can be a seamless experience.
If your team cannot visit the office but need to access important resources, then a system supporting remote working is crucial.
A great customer relationship management system (or CRM) will organise your customers details for you in one, accessible place. Many CRMs will have a desktop and mobile app available, to enable remote working.
Equally, we recommend the iPECS ONE mobile app which diverts calls to the office straight to your mobile. It also features video calls and instant messaging, so that you can stay connected whilst the world pauses for Christmas.
Manage customer expectations
If you’ll be taking time off over Christmas, your services will likely have a longer turnaround time than usual. This could be impacted by your suppliers or partners also taking time off over the festive period. The best way to ensure that customers are not disappointed is by managing expectations.
This is another way that on-hold marketing can benefit your business over Christmas. With a simple message you can let customers know that they can expect a longer service level agreement (SLA) for your services.
Your SLAs can also be signposted on your website and through email. By managing expectations in advance, you can make sure your customers will understand that usual time frames may not apply over Christmas.
Enjoy the Christmas break and reflect on your achievements over the past year
Last, but certainly not least, use the time away from your business to celebrate your achievements over the past year! 2021 has been a difficult year for many and reflecting on the positives is a great way to end the year.
If you require assistance in creating on-hold marketing, or you wish to improve your remote working capabilities, then get in touch with us today! Our teams have experience in providing effective remote working solutions, creating a seamless experience from the office to your home.
