Five Ways Of Keeping Your Business Running During The Holidays

16 Dec 2013

The weeks around Christmas are always interesting. Some companies that are gradually winding down, getting ready to burn on a low flame over the festive period and the transition from one year to the next. But others are ramping up activity and turning up the heat, trying to get as much as possible finished in the last couple of working weeks of the calendar year. Of course this is industry-specific, and for many it is the busiest and most profitable period and so it is important to get everything right.

Whilst some will take a few days off, to be with friends and family, for many the businesses roll on. Web based businesses are running 365 days a year 24/7 and they will stay switched on, ready to take orders, consumer enquiries, support requests and other communications with customers.

Fortunately, we will show you five ways in which you can automate some of these processes with CRM software.

1. Webform enquiries can be fed into the CRM system and a series of auto responses can be introduced and delivered in the timely and relevant fashion that the customer expects.

2. Action Plans can be used to trigger automatically generated activities and reminders, so you can have your follow up activities nicely scheduled for you when you return to work after the break.

3. Historic reports can be generated and output to help you compare sales performance with previous seasons.

4. As well as viewing performance of a previous season you can drill right down to see which days or even which times of day were your key sales dates and times, ensuring you have allocated enough resource to cover those busy times, and letting you know when you can let your team relax.

5. Email forwarding means you can get those important business emails onto your handset, laptop or tablet in real time, without even needing to log into the CRM system.

Why not take advantage of these tools which are available? They are there to help make your business processes more efficient regardless of whether you are hard at work at your desk or on the road, or if you are at home with the family relaxing and enjoying some seasonal cheer, safe in the knowledge that your automated processes are keeping your business alive and ticking.