Holiday Advantage: 3 Phone Setup Tips for the Busy Season Ahead
If the holidays bring you additional business, you certainly want to make the most of the opportunity. So, a word of advice: Set up your business phone system to customize the experience for your customers, based on the season and expected flow of business. Also, consider scaling up for the season with additional extensions and/or premium features to help handle extra call volume.
With cloud-hosted phone systems like Vonage Business, making seasonal updates is easy through the efficient Admin Portal – where your company’s administrator can adjust settings, add new calling features and even add phone extensions for the busy season ahead.
To make it even easier, Vonage has set up a special Holiday Setup page on our support website. Plus, our Customer Care team is specially prepared to assist with setup if you prefer speaking with a representative.
These phone customization tips offer ideas for setting holiday expectations and boosting business:
(1) Adjust Your Virtual Receptionist and Music
The Virtual Receptionist (VR) is the auto attendant feature that lets you direct calls within the business. So, why not include a special holiday greeting that may include your holiday hours. Since you can set up as many VRs as you like, you can even customize greetings by department. Consider setting your holiday greetings in advance (via the Admin Portal) and pre-set them to revert to your non-holiday greeting on the date you prefer. You’ve might also want to add some holiday flavor to your Music On Hold feature and/or add an on-hold message about special holiday promotions or commonly asked questions.
(2) Add Extensions to Scale Up (and Down)
Businesses that expect to take more holiday phone orders or customer service calls can easily add extensions without the hassle of renegotiating a contract. Using the Admin Portal, or by calling Customer Care, you can add as many extensions as needed to accommodate heightened call volume. Then, after the holidays, simply call in to deactivate these extra extensions. You only pay for the extensions you use for as long as you need them.
(3) Add New Service Features
With increased holiday call volume, some businesses will add premium calling features to increase call-taking efficiency and maximize staffing. Call Groups, for example, allow incoming calls to ring on multiple extensions. Call Queues provide a “dynamic waiting room” for callers that let you customize the holiday on-hold experience and better manage call volume. Both help you decrease voicemails, missed calls and busy signals so you’re able to serve as many callers as possible.
Why not let your business phone system help you prepare for holiday success? Your cloud-hosted Vonage Business system makes it easy to scale up (and down) and enhance the caller experience. Here’s to happy and profitable holidays ahead!
