Answering Messages Over the Holidays

Eleven on a Sunday night

It is eleven on a Sunday night in December, and a message arrives on your business's Facebook page. Do you still have the large size, and can it be picked up on the twenty-third?

Another arrives on Instagram on Monday morning, asking about hours on Boxing Day. Two more come in over lunch, while everyone is serving customers.

Each is a reasonable question from someone who expects an answer soon. To them a message is a conversation, and a conversation that goes quiet for two days has ended.

December brings more of these, at stranger hours, and more of them have dates attached. That combination is what lets them pile up.

What the person messaging needs

• To know it arrived, and that a person will read it.
• When that person will reply, as a time rather than soon.
• The common answers now, such as hours and order deadlines.
• A phone number for anything that cannot wait.
• The right route for orders, if messages are not it.

The second is the one most automatic replies miss. As soon as possible means something different to every reader, and to someone with a deadline it means tonight.

An automatic reply with a time in it

Facebook pages can send an instant reply to people who message them, and an away message for the times nobody is answering. Both are set up in the page's messaging settings.

Write the instant reply to cover what people need first: the message arrived, a person will answer by a stated time, and what to do if it is urgent.

For example: thanks for your message; we answer every day by noon, weekends included until Christmas; for anything needed today, call the shop. Add the December hours if they fit.

Instagram offers business accounts less automation, which is one more reason its messages need a person checking them every day.

Saved replies for the usual questions

Most December messages ask one of a handful of questions. Holiday hours, the last day to order, pickup times, whether gift cards can be bought online, whether you deliver.

Facebook pages can store saved replies, and Instagram business accounts have quick replies that work the same way. Write them now, while there is time to get the wording and the dates right.

Then adjust each one before sending: the customer's name, and a line that answers what they actually asked. A saved reply sent without reading the question is worse than a slow one.

Check them every Monday through December. A wrong date delivered quickly is still a wrong date.

A worked example

A family-run seafood market takes Christmas orders for live crab, oysters, prawns and smoked salmon platters from the start of December, and many of its customers ask about them by message.

Last year the owner answered messages from a phone at night, after closing. The page's automatic reply said only that the market would respond as soon as possible.

On December 27, someone opened the Instagram message requests folder for the first time and found five order requests from people the account did not follow, the oldest from early December.

Instagram puts messages from accounts you do not follow into that separate folder, and nobody at the market had known to look there.

This year the market has a rota, one person a day, with the requests folder on the checklist.

The automatic reply now says messages are answered by noon, and that Christmas orders are taken by phone or on the website's order form, with the last order date.

One person responsible each day

Messages that belong to everyone are answered by nobody. The fix is a name against each day, from now until the first week of January.

Include the weekends and the days between Christmas and New Year's, when people are at home, shopping and writing messages.

The person on duty checks every inbox the business has: Facebook, Instagram and its requests folder, and messages on the Google My Business listing if those are turned on.

Give that person what they need to answer without asking around: the order deadlines, the holiday hours, the delivery area, and who decides anything unusual.

Answered means replied to, not read. Both apps can show the sender that their message was seen, and a message seen but not answered reads as being ignored.

Messages that should be phone calls

Some conversations do not belong in messages: a changed order, a complaint, anything needing back and forth over details. Move those to the phone, with a short reply offering a call at a stated time.

A complaint sent by private message deserves the same speed. The customer chose to tell you rather than everyone, which is the better outcome, and a slow answer can change that.

And never take card details by message. If a customer sends a card number unprompted, do not use it; ask them to pay another way, and delete the message.

The days you are closed

On Christmas Day, Boxing Day, or whichever days you close, let the away message say when you reopen and how to reach someone if it matters.

Make the dates match the hours on your website and your Google listing, so the customer does not get three answers from three places.

The counter-case

A business that receives a message a week does not need a rota. One check each morning, by the same person, is enough.

A business that cannot staff messages through December should say so in the automatic reply and point to the phone or the order form, rather than leaving the inbox silent.

And a business whose customers always phone can keep the setup to an instant reply.

For most shops in December, though, an automatic reply with a time in it, saved answers, and one named person each day are what keep messages from turning into lost orders.

Before December

1. Write an instant reply with a stated time.
2. Set an away message for closed days.
3. Save replies for the common December questions.
4. Put a name against every day until January.
5. Check Instagram's requests folder every day.
6. Move order changes to the phone.
7. Review the saved replies every Monday.

Step four is the one everything else depends on. Automatic replies and saved answers make a person faster, but they do not replace the person, and without a name against each day nobody is that person.

The public version of the same conversation is covered in when a customer complains on your Facebook page.

Frequently asked questions

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