With the festive season fast approaching we know that shutting up shop and taking a well-earned break is a top priority for many of our customers. The final push to ensure year-end targets are met, rotas are finalised, and mince pies are eaten often takes precedence over the need to update your out of office but making sure your customers and suppliers are kept up to date is vital to ensuring you don’t get off to a bad start in the new year.
As a Managed Service Provider, we work closely with our customers to get their telephony systems ready for the holiday period. This year we’ve put together a list of things you should consider to help you stay off your suppliers and customers naughty lists.
Create holiday schedules for the Christmas period
Sharing holiday opening times with your customers and suppliers manages expectations and minimises the risk of frustrated customers trying to get hold of you while your business is closed. A simple but effective action that should be done well in advance of shutting up shop.
Highlight planned programme of works
If you know there’s disruptive system maintenance in the pipeline over closed periods, be sure to let your supplier know so that they can monitor the platforms accordingly. The last thing you want is a call on Christmas morning that could have been avoided.
Communicate change freezes with customers and suppliers
If you’re offering a reduced service during holiday periods, make sure customers and suppliers are aware before they try and schedule something in. This avoids frustrations and unnecessary delays and ensures customer experience remains tip top.
Update your voicemail and out of office reply
Suppliers are inundated with last minute requests at 5pm on Christmas eve to activate out of office/closed for the Christmas period voicemails. Spread some holiday cheer to your suppliers by getting the request in well in advance. You could even have some fun with this one and run an internal competition to nominate a ‘voice of Christmas’ to record your updated voicemail.
At N4Engage we’re here to help, so if you’re reading the above and thinking ‘must sort that out’ then put down the mince pie and get in touch with us. We’ll get your business sorted out with plenty of time to don the Christmas hat and enjoy the festivities.
