The specialist gave advice to companies on how to retain customers during the holidays

The long New Year's weekend period is becoming a test for companies to work smoothly, even when most are on vacation. At this time, there are still a number of factors that encourage customers to make purchases and seek services, so it is important for businesses to prepare in advance for the holiday season. Ivan Pavlov, head of Telfin's Key Customer Relations department, told Izvestia about this on December 18.

"Many people buy gifts after New Year's Eve itself, for example, when they go on a visit or a trip. It is also at this time that people plan for the future and start buying subscriptions to companies in the service sector: fitness, medicine, education. In addition, it is during the holidays that breakdowns occur more often due to the increased load on household appliances - people are urgently looking for repairs or replacement of out—of-order equipment. And finally, many people like to explore the market in a relaxed atmosphere and buy something online," said the expert.

At the same time, the number of refunds increases in early January — Russians often use the legal right to exchange a gift for a more suitable option. That's why it's important for companies to stay in touch: customer support during the holidays often turns a one-time purchase into long-term loyalty.

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Pavlov recommends notifying clients in advance about the work schedule through newsletters and the website, as well as offering alternative communication channels: a hotline, a feedback form, chatbots and messengers. It is important that the buyer feels the attention and understands that his request will be processed.

In addition, companies can boost customer loyalty with holiday voice greetings and informative answering machines. The function of selecting a topic from the voice menu helps to speed up the resolution of issues, especially when people are trying to save time.

If calls during the holidays are unavoidable, the expert advises setting up forwarding via a virtual PBX to the manager on duty or the owner. If employees are completely unavailable, you should connect a voice robot or an AI secretary who can record requests, accept pre-orders and answer standard questions. The received records can then be easily processed without missing a single request.

"Another important tool is notifications about missed calls, which allow you to quickly contact the client. All data can be automatically duplicated in CRM and displayed in convenient analytics, up to sending a report to the manager's messenger," Pavlov explained.

According to statistics, companies that ignore the need to maintain communication during long weekends lose up to 40% of calls in January. At the same time, businesses that prepared in advance for the holidays and set up processes increased conversion by about 25%.

Financial expert Tatiana Volkova advised Russians on December 12 not to take out loans for the New Year holidays. According to her, during this period, there may be an insistent desire to do this under various pretexts. Volkova believes that the holiday atmosphere, business marketing campaigns, and feelings of guilt have an impact on emotions and can lead to rash actions.

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