Why the telephone is so important to businesses during holiday season

For many companies, it’s a lucrative occasion when there’s a lot to tell your customers.

By maximising the communicative power of your telephone, you’ll keep callers informed, seize potential promotional opportunities, and even spread a little festive cheer along the way.

A season of changes

No matter what the sector, size or service of a business, it’s more than likely they’ll see some changes to their operation over the holiday period. At the very least, there’ll be temporary closures or altered opening hours on the holidays themselves – which is why an Out-of-Hours production should be an essential part of the preparations. This vital touchpoint will let callers know the relevant dates of closure and reopening, and importantly, provide alternative or emergency contact details to ensure they always have somewhere to turn if necessary.

Practically all phone systems facilitate this type of message, but cloud telephony adds another level of convenience in this area. Easily manageable, this technology allows Out-of-Hours messages to be programmed months in advance, eliminating the need for manual upload. The moment your business closes for the celebrations, you know this production will be played – and that it will switch back to the usual message as soon as you return to work.

This year in particular, the holidays may also see staff working remotely for an extended period of time. In this case, the advanced capabilities of a cloud system allow employees and callers to dial in and out from anywhere – so no matter where your staff or customers are based, they’ll deliver and receive the same highly professional caller experience as they would from a central location.

Inform, communicate, promote

A change in opening hours is just one example of the news a company might have to communicate during the festive season – and there are so many more. There may be changes in service provision; essential dates for final orders or deliveries; or online resources that could provide efficient alternatives. And promotionally, companies will also want to shout about any special offers, events or sales at a prime time for spending.

The caller experience is key in meeting these communicative and promotional goals. With a production targeting a captive audience that’s being transferred or placed on-hold, businesses can provide essential details via a promotional channel that’s often overlooked – resulting in happier callers, and an increase in sales enquiries.

Creating good cheer

Developing holiday audio branding productions is more than purely practical – it’s also an ideal way to spread some festive cheer among your callers. This can be done through your script, whether your messages offer simple best wishes for the season; thank people for their support through a potentially challenging year; or conjure up a full-scale, creative audio campaign to rival ‘Holidays are Coming’. And on top of this, there’s the music.

An integral part of any celebration, many of our most treasured festive memories are attached to a beloved song – and the right composition can’t fail to raise the Christmas spirits. Adding a seasonal track is the perfect way to inject the warm and fuzzy feeling to a production, which is why our talented composers have developed a complete holiday hit-list for our clients to use.

Inspired by everything from classic carols to jingle bell rock, our selection has a seasonal sound to suit every business – and it’s all included as part of the package.

With the right expertise in communications, cloud telephony and creativity, you can make your telephone work hard for your business this festive season – keeping your callers informed, and in the festive spirit.