6 Things You Should Automate Before Heading Out for the Holidays

Ready to take off for vacation? Don’t forget to do the following before you unplug.

Question: What is one thing entrepreneurs forget to automate, systemize, or build processes around before they shut down for holidays?

Finances

"Before you take off, ensure that the finances of your business are handled, including paying employees, accepting automated payments from clients, handing pay failures and paying your own invoices. By automating, you won't return to an empty bank account and overdue bills."


Holiday Shipping and Returns

"Clearly communicating holiday shipping and return information before shutting down is crucial to customer conversions and satisfaction. You can do this in several ways. Your can use language such as, "final day to order to receive by Christmas" on product descriptions and shipping pages. You can also set up an email autoresponder for the emails typically associated with customer questions."


Customer Support

"You can't assume that your customers aren't working just because you've taken off for the holidays. You can't even assume that your customers celebrate the same holidays that you do. So make sure your customers can at least get a basic level of assistance while you're away. Even writing up fixes for the most common problems they might encounter is a step in the right direction."


Proper Notifications

"Make sure you clearly communicate to people that you'll be out of office, whether it's through an email autoresponder or a message you post on your Facebook page. As long as you take the due diligence to announce your impending shut down, your customers and partners will be mostly satisfied with their inability to reach you. "


Team Vacation Tracking

"Because our teammates have different dates they are taking off during the holidays, we wanted to be respectful of everyone's days off. So, we had everyone update the company calendar with the dates they will be available and unavailable during the holidays."


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6 Things You Should Automate Before Heading Out for the Holidays

Ready to take off for vacation? Don’t forget to do the following before you unplug.

Question: What is one thing entrepreneurs forget to automate, systemize, or build processes around before they shut down for holidays?

Finances

"Before you take off, ensure that the finances of your business are handled, including paying employees, accepting automated payments from clients, handing pay failures and paying your own invoices. By automating, you won't return to an empty bank account and overdue bills."


Holiday Shipping and Returns

"Clearly communicating holiday shipping and return information before shutting down is crucial to customer conversions and satisfaction. You can do this in several ways. Your can use language such as, "final day to order to receive by Christmas" on product descriptions and shipping pages. You can also set up an email autoresponder for the emails typically associated with customer questions."


Customer Support

"You can't assume that your customers aren't working just because you've taken off for the holidays. You can't even assume that your customers celebrate the same holidays that you do. So make sure your customers can at least get a basic level of assistance while you're away. Even writing up fixes for the most common problems they might encounter is a step in the right direction."


Proper Notifications

"Make sure you clearly communicate to people that you'll be out of office, whether it's through an email autoresponder or a message you post on your Facebook page. As long as you take the due diligence to announce your impending shut down, your customers and partners will be mostly satisfied with their inability to reach you. "


Team Vacation Tracking

"Because our teammates have different dates they are taking off during the holidays, we wanted to be respectful of everyone's days off. So, we had everyone update the company calendar with the dates they will be available and unavailable during the holidays."


See Also: How Online Retailers Are Making Your Holiday Shopping Decisions For You

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