Don't Forget to Call Your Customers This Holiday Season

The holidays often put a crimp in business. While we may appreciate the break on a personal level, there’s no doubt that holidays and employee time off – or too much merry-making – can put the brakes on even the most serious business. Perhaps it’s a good thing: it’s a way to refresh employees and help them get ready to start the new year. But this isn’t to say that there aren’t some advantages to the holidays from a business stand-point: they’re a great excuse to pick up the telephone and reach out and build good will with your customers.

This isn’t the time for hard selling. It’s a time for getting in touch, getting updated on what your customers are doing, what their plans for the new year might be and helping them understand how you may be able to help them meet their goals. The point, according to a recent blog post by Nextiva’s Rieva Lesonsky, is to keep it light and friendly.

“The holiday season is a time for celebrating relationships, and talking in person can help reinforce and cement your business relationships,” she wrote.

It’s also a good time to reach people who might normally be hard to reach. The pace of the office slows down, and underlings are often on vacation, leaving the people you really need to talk to from a sales perspective “unguarded” by front-office watchdogs.

“While rank-and-file workers typically take time off, C-level execs are more likely to be working, frequently coming in early or staying late to take advantage of the quiet office and uninterrupted time to focus,” wrote Lesonsky.

It’s also a good time to take advantage of the fact that prospects may still have money in the budget that needs to be spent before it’s taken back or otherwise lost. Many companies scramble to ensure they use all of their budgets at the end of the year, for fear that upper management will trim budgets next year.

It’s simply important, writes Lesonsky, to keep the tone light and avoid hard selling. It’s also good to focus on the right people. She recommends checking last year’s records in the CRM system from the same time and seeing who might be most likely to have money left in the budget.

Keep the calls focused and short, and you’ll build good will for the future rather than annoying prospects with badgering.

“These calls aren’t focused on making an immediate sale (though that would be nice), but on enhancing your relationship with the customer and finding new ways to serve him or her,” wrote Lesonsky. “Explore their needs for the coming year, what they’d like to do differently and how you can help them achieve their 2015 goals. Ending up with a firm commitment to talk in 2015 is a good start.”

Edited by Alisen Downey