Set Up a Holiday Reminder
Setting up a holiday reminder in Richpanel ensures your customers are informed when your business is unavailable. By combining business hours settings and automation rules, you can send an auto-reply across all or specific channels during your holiday period.
1. Configure Business Hours for Holidays
- Go to Settings → Business Hours → Holidays.
- Set the Holiday Date Range (e.g., December 25th to January 1st).
- Enable Special Work Hours if your team will be available for specific times during the holiday. This will allow you to stay online during those hours, and no automated holiday messages will be sent during this period.
- Add a Custom Message for live chats to notify customers of your holiday schedule.
Example Message: “Thank you for reaching out! We’re on holiday from December 25th to January 1st and will respond as soon as we’re back.”
- Save the changes.
Note: During this period, the system will treat this date range as Outside Business Hours.
2. Create an Automation Rule for Auto-Replies
- Go to Settings → Automation Rules.
- Click Create Rule and name it (e.g., “Holiday Auto-Reply”).
- Configure the Rule:
- Trigger: When a customer starts a new conversation.
- Condition: Business Hours = Outside Business Hours.
- Action: Add a reply (Setup your holiday response).
- Example Message: “We’re currently on holiday. We’ll get back to you as soon as possible after January 1st.”
- Save the rule
3. Enable the Automation Rule
- Before going on leave, enable the rule (e.g., on December 25th) so it starts working from your holiday start date.
- The rule will send auto-replies to customers across all configured channels when active.
Key Benefits
- Notifies customers about your holiday schedule.
- Works seamlessly across multiple channels like email and live chat.
- Helps manage customer expectations during non-working periods.