[Source: Smallbiztechnology.com ] Your telephone is a powerful tool EVERY day in your business. But for some businesses, especially retailers, the telephone gets an extra work out during the holiday season. Every customer is different and so there's not ONE solution for all customers. However, if you sell great products, all your holiday shopping customers have two things in common.

• They need to buy gifts for Christmas and other holidays
• They know your competition is only ONE click away

Your telephone can be a VERY powerful tool to boost holiday sales, here's how some RingCentral customers are using their virtual phone service to boost sales. GiveAGiftBasket.com is adding a Click-to-call button on every page of their site, and on all employee's email signatures. Owner Tracy Dixon hires seasonal help during the holidays and sets up RingCentral extensions for each department on her toll-free number to help direct customers as quickly as possible. "I like how everything is all in one. As a small business, I want to get as many features as possible all in one place. It helps me to always put my best foot forward." ZiaModa is a high-end fashion outlet specializing in sourcing the highest quality products from around the world. Their toll free number enables them to provide a customized, personal service to every single customer. If you're going to boost holiday sales this season, and for the next 12 months, you must be able to think strategically, implement quickly and refine your strategy as needed. Here's some basic tools for boosting sales, getting new customers and and keeping the ones you have.

• Email marketing (services - Icontact, Constant Contact)
• Web site (most web sites look pretty bad - invest money for a professional web designer to make it look better)
• Social media tools like RSS feeds and podcasts can be an important way to communicate to some of your customers
• Many people want to speak to a human. Work with Gotvmail, RingCentral, VirtualPBX or others to make sure your telephone rings and rings well

(click here for original article)

This entry was posted on Sunday, November 18th, 2007 at 5:48 pm and is filed under Newsletter. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.