Most small businesses close for a week or two over Christmas and New Year. The phone does not. People still have a leaking tap on 27 December. They still decide on the renovation over the Christmas break, while the family is in the house and the spare room is full. They still ring the physio when the back that hurt all December finally gives out.
The usual answer is to leave the phone on voicemail and hope for the best. Most people who reach voicemail hang up, and the ones who leave a message usually leave a thin one. So you come back in January to a handful of "call me back" messages and no idea how many more rang off.
It is October, which is the right time to sort this out. Here is a plan you can set up in an afternoon and forget about until you are back.
Step 1: decide your dates and say them out loud
Write down the day you close and the day you reopen, and decide what "closed" means for you. Fully off? Checking messages once a day? Emergencies only?
Be honest with yourself here. If you say "emergencies only" you need to know what counts as one (more on that below). If you say "fully off", mean it, and set things up so the calls are still captured for when you are back.
Then put the dates everywhere a customer looks: your website, your Google listing, your email signature and your invoices for December. People are far less annoyed by "we are closed until 5 January" than by a phone that rings out.
Christmas Day falls on a Friday this year and Boxing Day on a Saturday, so most states add a substitute public holiday on the Monday after. Check your own state's list before you set your hours.
Step 2: decide what counts as urgent
This is the one most businesses skip, and it is the one that decides whether you get a quiet holiday.
Make a short list of what is genuinely urgent for your business and what can wait until you reopen.
- A plumber: burst pipe or no water, urgent. Quote for a new bathroom, not urgent.
- A property manager: a tenant with no power or a security problem, urgent. A question about a lease renewal, not urgent.
- A clinic: anything described as an emergency should be told to call 000. A new patient wanting a January appointment, not urgent.
- A cafe or restaurant: almost nothing is urgent. A booking for your first week back is worth a callback, but it can wait.
Then decide what happens to the urgent ones. Who takes them? You, a colleague on a roster, or nobody, with the caller told when you will be back?
Step 3: change what callers hear
The default "you have reached the voicemail of" greeting tells a caller nothing. At minimum, record a greeting that says you are closed, when you reopen, and what to do if it is urgent.
That helps a little. The trouble is that a greeting is still a one-way recording. The caller cannot ask "are you open on the 2nd?" and most still will not leave a message.
An AI receptionist does more. With AfterTone, the assistant answers the call, talks to the caller and emails you a summary within about a minute. For the shutdown, three settings do most of the work:
- Away mode. Switch it on, set the date you are back, and write what the assistant should say, such as "We are closed for the holidays and back on 5 January. I can take your details and the team will call you when we reopen." The assistant tells every caller.
- Opening hours and public holidays. The assistant knows the current time in your timezone. Mark the public holidays you are closing for and it answers "are you open today?" correctly.
- An urgent contact. If someone is on call, nominate them. The assistant can transfer genuinely urgent callers to them live, or flag the call as urgent in the summary.
Step 4: protect your own time
Being reachable for emergencies should not mean being reachable for everything.
- Use VIP callers. Add the numbers that always matter, such as your biggest client or a family member, so their calls are flagged urgent whatever they say.
- Set quiet hours. On the Email + SMS plan, quiet hours hold texts about late calls until the morning, so a wrong number at 2am does not wake you.
- Send summaries to the right inbox. If a business partner or the office is covering, add them as an extra summary recipient so the messages do not all land on you.
- Check once a day, not all day. A summary tells you who rang, why and how urgent it is, so you can read the lot in a few minutes with your morning coffee and close the laptop.
Step 5: plan your first morning back
The shutdown is not over until the calls are returned. Before you close, block out the first hour or two of your first day back for callbacks.
If the messages are in a structured form, this is quick: sort by urgency, ring the ones that are ready to book first, and work down the list. The caller who rang on 29 December and was told "the team will call you when we reopen" is expecting your call. Ring them first and you have a job on the books before your competitors have finished reading their voicemail.
The short version
- Pick your dates and put them everywhere.
- Decide what is urgent and who handles it.
- Make sure callers get a real answer, not a beep.
- Protect your time with VIPs, quiet hours and one daily check.
- Block out time to call everyone back.
Do it in October and the holidays are yours. Leave it until 23 December and you will be setting up a voicemail greeting with a Christmas ham in the oven.
Want the phone covered over the break? Build your assistant free and we will ring you so you can hear it. Your phone still rings first, you keep your number, and you can turn forwarding off again whenever you like.