The last holiday break of the year is almost here. Time to hang the mistletoe, wrap the gifts, and soak in the festive spirit. But as you transition from one family feast to another, you can’t risk ignoring the leads in your pipeline.
Nearly 70% of Americans go over budget during the holidays. And while they are on their year-end break, they are still online, looking for solutions to their pain points.
That’s a lot of potential customers and revenue that could slip through the cracks when you’re not watching.
It may be quite the task to juggle work and family this holiday, but our curated lead-saving hacks could be the holiday miracle you’ve been looking for.
Quick rituals to avoid losing customers in your absence
As businesses bounce back from last year’s slum, the holiday season ahead looks promising. Customers are ready to spend more to navigate any challenges, which is why this holiday season, let it be business as usual even when you are not at the helm.
Communicate your unavailability/availability
Your business website is open 24×7 for prospects. Once they are on your website, they may need more information or quick answers. They could be checking your site while waiting at the airport before the last boarding call or during the red lights en route to a holiday feast. What they don’t have is time, and what they do need could be your solution.
And before you know it, the visitor either vanishes into thin air or moves on to your competitor.
All this could happen in a matter of minutes. When you function on skeletal staffing, it’s impossible to watch out for these hits and misses.
That’s where an AI chatbot can help you out. When you deploy a live chat, you can automatically trigger it to pop up and engage your website visitors. Further, a CRM with auto-assignment routes incoming chats to a sales rep who’s available on shift. This makes sure that no inbound interactions slip through the cracks.
So what good can a live chat do when there isn’t anyone to engage with these visitors? That’s where a holiday prompt can help.
Notify your visitors that your team is away and have them leave their contact details for you to follow up. And when you or a team member get the prospect’s contact details, start engaging with them and take the business forward.
Set up appropriate handovers
When your team is going on a planned holiday, it’s nearly impossible to close all active deals. Some leads may need more nurturing; some have your proposals but haven’t signed the dotted line.
As tempting as it may be to put all the information in one email, and hit the DND status, you need a much more comprehensive plan. When you have proper handovers in place, you ensure a seamless transition of your deals.
This way, you make sure that your deals reach a team member on shift even while you are away. And when a salesperson answers, they don’t have to scramble back and forth to find answers, or worse, call you while you’re spending time with family.
With contact notes, agents who engage with leads can always jot down important information and save it within your CRM.
All this information and context will be neatly organized and can fill you up when you return. Reduce the back and forth and start conversations from where you (your colleague) left without any setback.
Keep leads warm with sale sequences
Customer experience is a prime factor that gives you an edge over your competitors. Customers today prefer businesses that treat prospects like humans than numbers. Human connection is no more a luxury but a mandate in the buyer’s journey.
The holidays are a perfect time to strengthen relationships with your leads. You can send thoughtful messages, wish them happy holidays or go the extra mile to send them holiday offers or discounts.
Set up a sales cadence with the right product mix, holiday-centric content, and end with a simple new year greeting. This ensures that your prospects stay connected with your brand through the holidays.
A CRM with sales automation can help you trigger sales cadences across different channels. Not only can you automate lead nurturing, but you can scale it as more leads make it to your list during the holidays.
And come the new year, both you and your prospects are ready to engage. Your first email/call may not be cold, and your prospects will warmly reciprocate by engaging without any reservations.
So how do you create sales cadences? Well, if you’re looking for some inspiration, here are some free templates to get started.
Review past trends and prioritize your objectives
Some team members volunteer to hold the fort during the holidays while others are on a break. And when you have limited staffing to oversee sales, you need to be wise about the deals they need to track, the regions/customer segments that are likely to be very active.
This is when you can tap into historical data to make strategic decisions. Tapping into these numbers will help you find territories that receive a high volume of interactions.
A CRM with advanced reporting can help you turn data into meaning. Not only can you generate reports in an instant, but you can also apply filters to narrow down the timelines, territories, and sales performances. This will help you forecast better and offer flexibility to your holiday staffing.
When in doubt, always schedule
If you are in a customer-engaging role, you may schedule calls regularly and let prospects book a time with you. As you break away for the last holiday break of the year, it’s essential to mark your unavailability. This avoids prospects from booking time with you while you’re on vacation.
If you have other team members who will handle your deals while you are away, it is important to convey the same to your prospects. This gives them a sense of reassurance that your team is always available for a prospect in distress.
Holidays are also times when you may have many email campaigns to go out. Ensure that the reply-to address goes to a common team inbox or a team member who will be available.
As a pre-holiday routine, schedule your emails to go out after the holiday ends. Like how you do not want to be interrupted during your time off, your prospects may find sales calls and meeting invites intruding when spending time with their loved ones. A CRM powered by AI can help you detect your prospect’s out-of-office notification and lets you find the next best time to schedule meetings.
This helps find a sweet spot to send those emails, schedule those meetings, and delight customers.
As the festive cheer sets in, there’s a lot of loose ends to tie before you take that big break. As you juggle between the pages of your year-end reports, campaigns, and quotas, these little things can help your sales move forward seamlessly. By delegating sales activities to your CRM like Freshsales, you can ensure that all is well even when you are out of sight and sales is out of your mind.
Got any tips that will help entrepreneurs and business owners? Comment them below
