Prepare your Telephone Greetings for the Holidays

It’s that most wonderful time of year when your telephones will be ringing to the tune of customer queries throughout the holidays. Are your telephone greetings ready for the rush? Here’s how to prepare your telephone greetings for the holidays.

Create a holiday greeting

Tell your customers exactly how much you appreciate them by creating a holiday greeting to replace your standard one. Be as professional as possible–studio quality voice recordings are best–but don’t forget to be personal and friendly. Tell your customers that you’re happy to hear from them, but keep the message short so they can get to the right person quickly.

Careful with the hold music

Cheerful Christmas music is fine for holiday holds, but don’t overuse it. Customers shouldn’t be kept waiting for too long. You may want to personalize the hold music by adding in messages about special offers available to your customers. Alert them to holiday promotions and special sales, or offer up a special discount code just for calling your business.

Identify your holiday availability

Even if you post your holiday availability on your website and social media (which you should definitely do), go ahead and share it on your holiday telephone greeting. Customers need to know when they can actually reach a live person during the holiday season, so if your hours will be different, let your customers know.

Consider using an answering service or call centre

Whether you use an answering service to pick up calls while you’re out of the office, or you forward overflow calls to a call centre, you’re better off utilizing one or both of these services instead of risking the anger of your customers if the wait times to speak to someone become too long. Customers are likely already stressed during the holiday season, so there’s no need to add more stress to their day. Make sure you have enough people tackling your incoming calls so your customers don’t have to waste their time waiting for someone to help them.

For more tips on preparing your customer service department for the holidays, visit the Answer 365 blog regularly.