Stay in Contact with Your Clients All Summer Long
In case you hadn’t noticed the sweat dripping from your brow, let us remind you that summer time is in full swing! Many business owners use the summer to slow down just a little bit and lean into family and friends, but there are some basic things you need to take care of before you slather on that sunscreen.
This month, Spring Insight is delivering a series of blog posts that will provide actionable guidance on getting your website “summer-ized.” In the first article, we started at the beginning: your homepage!
Your website is frequently the first place people will get an impression of your business so naturally, you want to make it a great one! If your information is not current, your business is at risk for losing connections with those clients, which negatively affects your business in lots of ways, including right where it hurts the most: your bottom line.
This article is going to get into the realm of customer communications as well, focusing specifically on making sure that every visitor who wants to engage with your business can do so easily and satisfactorily this summer, no matter where you are or what you are doing.
Vacation Ready Your Website’s Contact Form
Most business websites have a contact form that gathers basic information from a visitor to your site. The purpose of this form is to give the person an opportunity to request more information, get access to a lead magnet, or simply join your email list to keep in touch with your business and what it offers.
The contact form sends the gathered information to a dedicated email address, which is set up on the back end of your website. Common options are for the contact form to go to the info@ or contact@ email address that goes to one or more people on your team, but it can be sent to any address you specify. Sometimes it goes directly to you, the owner of the business.
Friendly reminder from your friends at Spring Insight: Don’t forget about these emails when vacation planning. If you have it set to go to Joe Smith and he is on vacation… Silence.. You don’t want to miss the opportunity to nurture a new client relationship, or to give a visitor a bad impression of your business by being ignored just because someone is at the beach. Decide who will receive those emails and explain how you’d like each type of communication handled in your absence.
Delegate Live Contact Responsibilities
If you have a physical office space, a live chat feature on your website, or a business phone number, someone needs to be responsible for answering that phone and greeting those potential clients. Delegate these roles explicitly and ensure that your team member understands what you expect of them.
If you are a one person show, we totally get it! Many thriving businesses are run by an ambitious solopreneur. In that case, you can consider outsourcing to an answering service or freelance virtual assistant. We all deserve a real break from business. Don’t leave this responsibility on your shoulders when there are many options available to get the coverage you need.
Stay tuned for the next installment in our summer-ize series, which will cover automation and outsourcing. In the meantime, get in touch with us. We can help you get your business vacation ready.