IT’S ESSENTIAL to let your customers know if your business is going to be closed over holiday periods.

Here’s a checklist of how to do this, along with some other things you need to think about when looking ahead:

• Set up an e-mail auto response. Most e-mail programs have an ‘out of office’ setting which you can use to state when your business will be closed, so that any customer or contact who gets in touch will get an automatic reply telling them how soon their query will be dealt with. It’s worth saying that calls and premises will be monitored to ensure that you don’t encourage thieves or vandals to target an empty building.

• Break the news to customers personally. If you’re going to be unavailable, tell customers that call you or visit you in person that your business will be closed. They will appreciate being kept informed.

• Update your website. If you have included festive-themed content or comments on your site in the run-up to Christmas, make sure these sentiments are removed before you close for business so that the site doesn’t look stale and out of date.

• Revise your marketing plan. Set aside some time to reread your marketing plan and assess the success of the campaigns you carried out during the past year. ¦