Maintaining Communications with Your Prospects and Clients While You’re Traveling

Going on Vacation or Traveling This Summer?

Forty percent of solopreneurs and small business owners indicate they take 16-plus days of vacation every year, and this doesn’t factor in the weeks or months that you spend on the road meeting with prospects and clients.

So, as you get ready to depart on a vacation or go on another business trip this summer, the question is who looks after your business? Even if you’re one of the 40 percent of professionals who say you’re “always-on,” the reality is that you’re not available 24/7.

At the heart of your business are your clients and prospects; they don’t shut down and go on vacation when you do or get on the same planes and attend the same meetings as you.

Hiring more staff isn’t necessarily always the answer. More headcount costs more money, and not every business can afford to do so. This certainly makes a lot of sense with revenues for solopreneurs and small business static or even decreasing. Working more hours isn’t an option for most. Ninety-seven percent of small business leaders work weekends; almost half work 50-plus hours, with 19 percent reporting 60-plus hours a week.

Outsourcing Tasks and Functions

There is an alternative; Growing numbers of business leaders recognize the value in strategic outsourcing, bringing in experts who are more efficient and effective at a particular task of business function. In some cases, outsourcing may even be cheaper. Fifty-five percent of small business report some level of outsourcing today. The other 44 percent delineate a list of reasons why they are unlikely or very unlikely to outsource any tasks or business function.

So back to the original question: how do you manage communications—digital, email, and phone—with clients and prospects when you’re traveling—whether for business or leisure? For many businesses, this may be a broader issue than when you’re traveling. Prospect and client engagement may be problematic whether your traveling or in the office.

Missed Customer Engagement

Research shows that an astonishing 60 percent of callers will abandon a call in less than one minute. One-third will not call back again. The same is true when it comes to digital engagement. Forty-one percent of customers who submit an email for support expect a response in less than six hours. Visitors to your website will leave within an average of 76 seconds if they cannot find what they need or get their question answered.

This data should be quite concerning, not only when you’re traveling but when you’re in the office. It also provides you with a solid business case for looking at outsourcing options.

Strategic, Targeted Outsourcing to Davinci

Davinci Virtual Office Solutions launched Live Receptionist, Auto Receptionist, and Live Web Chat services to provide businesses with the means to outsource these functions—when traveling and when not traveling.

Live Receptionist services provides customers with a dedicated team of sales and services agents who are experts on your business and able to route and answer inbound calls and emails, quickly and effectively. Call workflows, which extend to Davinci Auto Receptionist, route inbound callers to the right voicemail or person in your organization.

Davinci Live Web Chat changes the dynamics of digital engagement on your website. Whether you’re selling merchandise on your website or simply using it for lead generation, the ability to engage proactively with each visitor based on their identity and behavior is critical. Davinci’s Live Web Chat service uses predictive analytics to determine which visitor needs assistance and when.

In addition to all of the above, Davinci’s various communications services are fully integrated. This is particularly important considering the fact that 95 percent of customers use more than one channel to communicate with companies. Eighty-seven percent note that an integrated experience across all of these engagement channels is important.

There is no reason to risk missing that important prospect call, making clients and prospects countless hours waiting on hold or waiting days for a response they had to a question. Get Davinci Live Receptionist, Auto Receptionist, and/or Live Web Chat and ensure that your customers have optimal, fully integrated engagement experiences, irrespective of the channel they use and whether you’re on vacation, on the road, or back home in your office.

About Patrick Spencer

Patrick Spencer (Ph.D.) is the President and Founder of TIRO Communications that helps companies develop, build, and manage content, customer, advocacy, and demand-gen programs. Included in its offerings is TIRO Cognition Insights, a data analytics tool that enables B2C and B2B businesses to pinpoint what their customers and competitors’ customers are saying and to identify corresponding actionable product, services, competitive, sales, and marketing intelligence.

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Website: www.tirocommunications.com