Use Your Business Phone Greeting to Get in the Holiday Spirit and Engage Customers

Does your to-do list involve stringing colored lights around your office? Maybe you're doing everything in your power to avoid putting up the lobby tree — even cleaning your desk and tidying your inbox. And though it may be easy to overlook, don't forget your business phone options this holiday season. Use your business phone greeting to spread some cheer, but also to set expectations that will help customers do business with you during the holidays.

Getting in the Holiday (Business) Spirit

While you want to help your customers get in the holiday spirit and show the fun side of your company, there are other ways to do this besides spending way too much time setting up an inflatable Santa Claus or risking life and limb climbing a ladder to hang lights.

Instead, you can use the ease and flexibility of your cloud-based business phone system to set a festive atmosphere — but also to share critical business information such as holiday hours. It costs nothing, it's simple, and most importantly, you don't even have to be in the office.

Instead of a typical business phone greeting, use your outgoing message to add some holiday fun and business assistance to your caller's day.

When you use a cloud communications system, you can access the admin portal from wherever you are, whether you're standing in line to take your little one to see Santa, wrapping presents in your living room, or at a relative's house. Since cloud telephony solutions connect multiple locations into a single network, you can make changes to all locations from one place. This allows you to quickly make changes to your communications systems with the touch of a few buttons.

Updating Your Business Phone Greeting

Here are three ways to add some holiday spirit to put your customers in a jolly mood:

1. Play Some Holiday Tunes: Being on hold is no fun, but hold music can help make the wait a little more tolerable. Instead of using the same tunes you use all year, mix it up for the holiday season. It could be that you only hear it this time of year, or perhaps it brings back memories of holidays past, but there's something about holiday music that puts a smile on people's faces. Now is the time to change the music on your hold pattern to favorite holiday tunes. Just be sure to warn your employees so they're not surprised if they pick up a call to a customer singing "Jingle Bells."
2. Personalize the Virtual Receptionist: In addition to helping customers get to the right employee in less time, you can use your virtual receptionist to spread some cheer and include important updates, such as special holiday hours. Also, the virtual receptionist offers an ideal forum to briefly highlight holiday specials or promotions. Yes, you can add a standard holiday greeting, but why not take the opportunity to be creative and stand out? Since it's so simple to change your greeting, you can use different messages every day or so. You could even incorporate social media by having callers guess the holiday movie quotes and post their guesses on Facebook or Twitter. It's up to you. It is also easy to program the system to revert to your old message once the holidays are over.
3. Customize Voicemail Greetings: Voicemail greetings are typically straightforward, but you have a blank slate and a captive audience to add value or humor to each caller's day. One of your biggest assets as a business owner is your employees, and what makes your team effective is the diversity each employee brings to the table. Encourage your employees to share this diversity by personalizing their voicemail greeting for the holidays. You can even have a theme of the week, such as a favorite holiday movie, music, tradition, and treat. Your callers will learn more about your employees and maybe even get some ideas for new holiday traditions. However, since time is valuable, make sure your employees keep their messages short, sweet, and funny.

By taking the time to show some creativity in your greeting, you can use your business phone options to share some holiday spirit with your customers. Your cloud communications system helps keep your business running smoothly and efficiently throughout the year, but during the holiday season, take advantage of the features at your fingertips to spread some cheer.

To learn more about cloud-based phone solutions, connect with a Vonage Business representative.