Holiday Boundaries for Clients (So You Can Breathe)
You teach people how to treat you. If you go into the holidays with fuzzy hours, slippery “emergencies,” and no scripts, clients will text at 10:47 p.m., ask for “one quick thing,” and expect your team to sprint while everyone else is toasting. Not this year.
Here’s a practical, no-BS plan to set holiday boundaries that protect your time and keep clients confident: publish your hours and SLAs everywhere, define what truly counts as urgent, give your team “we’re closed” scripts that keep respect, and re-onboard big projects in January like pros.
1) Publish Holiday Hours and SLAs—Everywhere
Decide your actual availability. Pick the dates you’re closed, your reduced-support windows, and your on-call rules (if any). Then translate that into two things clients understand: hours and SLA promises (first-response time and resolution expectations). SLAs work because they set specific, measurable targets; they’re the backbone of service management for a reason.
Make it impossible to miss. Update:
Website: top banner + footer + “Contact” and “Support” pages.
Email: autoresponder + signature line with holiday hours.
Phone: voicemail greeting.
Chat: offline message + expected response time.
Booking link: blackout dates + next available.
Google Business Profile: special holiday hours (retail/local service).
Social bios/pinned posts: short line with dates.
Knowledge base/FAQ: “Holiday Hours and Support Options” article. Clear FAQs reduce friction and signal you’re on top of it.
Set a simple SLA grid (copy/paste):
Standard inquiries: first reply within 1 business day; resolution within 3 business days.
Billing/ordering issues: first reply within 8 business hours; resolution within 1–2 business days.
True emergencies (see next section): first reply within 2 hours during on-call window.
Mind your SMS/email timing laws for marketing. If you’re sending promotional texts or telemarketing messages, don’t ping people outside 8:00 a.m.–9:00 p.m. local time. That quiet-hours window lives in the FCC’s rules implementing the TCPA; violating it is how you end up in a demand letter thread.
90-minute deployment checklist:
Draft your hours/SLA grid.
Paste to banner, footer, support page, FAQ, and chat offline text.
Update voicemail and email signatures.
Turn on autoresponders (email/SMS).
Pin a short post on social with a link to your hours page.
2) Escalation Rules and True Emergencies
Everything feels urgent in December. Most of it isn’t. You need an escalation matrix that defines severity, response targets, and who gets called—so your team isn’t guessing (or arguing) at 9 p.m.
Use a simple severity model (steal this):
SEV-1 (Critical): Service down for most users, safety/security risk, or material financial loss if not handled within hours.
SEV-2 (High): Major functionality impaired, no safe workaround.
SEV-3 (Medium): Limited impact, workaround available; can wait until business hours.
SEV-4 (Low): Questions, minor bugs, non-urgent requests.
Severity-based incident handling is standard practice in IT/service management because it prevents “everything is on fire” syndrome and focuses resources where they matter most.
Define “true emergency” in plain English:
Is it a SEV-1? (Use the criteria above.)
Will waiting until business hours cause irreversible harm? (Data loss, safety risk, permanent revenue loss.)
Is there a workaround? If yes, it’s not an emergency.
Write the path:
During business hours: Ticket/chat → triage → on-call lead if SEV-1.
After hours/on holidays: One channel only (e.g., “Text ‘URGENT’ to +1-xxx-xxx-xxxx”). Anything else waits.
Time bounds: SEV-1 acknowledged within 2 hours in on-call windows; all others next business day.
Documenting severity and escalation like this is straight out of incident-management playbooks; it keeps your on-call time for true emergencies.
3) “We’re Closed” Scripts That Keep Respect
Your tone matters. Get firm and helpful. These scripts do both. (Personalize the bracketed bits and you’re done.)
Email autoresponder (general):
Subject: We got your note — here’s when to expect a reply
Thanks for reaching out. Our team is observing holiday hours from [Dec 22–Jan 1].Standard requests: first reply within 1 business day.
Billing/ordering issues: first reply within 8 business hours.
Emergencies (service down, safety/security): text “URGENT” to [on-call number] for a response within 2 hours during our on-call window.
Need quick help? Check [FAQ/Status link] or book the next available spot [scheduler link].
— [Your Company] Support
Autoresponders exist to set expectations and route people to alternatives; implement them in your helpdesk or inbox now.
SMS auto-reply (for a shared support number):
We’re on holiday hours [dates]. Standard replies resume [date].
If service is down or there’s a security risk, text URGENT + a 1-line summary for on-call response. Otherwise we’ll reply next business day. See [status/FAQ link].
Voicemail greeting:
You’ve reached [Company]. We’re observing holiday hours [dates].
For standard requests, leave your name, number, and a brief message—we’ll call back next business day.
If your issue is service-down or safety/security, hang up and text URGENT to [on-call number].
Live chat (offline message):
Happy holidays! We’re on reduced hours through [date]. Drop your email and question—we’ll reply next business day. If service is down, text URGENT to [number].
Two notes to avoid headaches:
Keep marketing SMS inside the 8 a.m.–9 p.m. local window. Quiet hours apply even during holiday promos.
Train your team to mirror the policy. The fastest way to blow boundaries is one rep who replies at 11:30 p.m. like “no big deal.”
4) January Re-Onboarding for Big Projects
Holiday pause? Good. Now re-enter like a grown-up instead of stumbling into “where were we?”
Run this 5-step re-onboarding sequence the first week of January:
Reset brief (1 page). Restate the project goal, success metrics, scope, owners, and current status. (If anything changed during the break, call it.)
Risk & dependency check. Confirm external deadlines, vendor lead times, and internal resource availability.
Change log and decisions needed. List decisions blocking progress with clear owners and due dates.
Two-week plan. Show the first 10 business days of tasks, with dates and who’s doing what.
Communication rhythm. Pick the weekly meeting time, channel, and decision-making rules.
Put it on rails: use the same template for every paused project so clients feel the competence right away. And if your product has incident potential (e.g., software, critical equipment), keep your SEV-1 definitions and on-call window in the re-onboarding doc so no one regresses to “everything is urgent.” Severity-based workflows are standard because they create predictable, high-confidence communications when stakes are high.
One-Day Setup Sprint (Do This Now)
Block a half day, grab coffee, and knock this out.
Hour 1 — Decide & document
Pick closed/reduced hours and build your SLA grid.
Finalize your true emergency definition + on-call channel/timing.
Approve scripts (email, SMS, voicemail, chat).
Hour 2 — Publish everywhere
Banner, footer, support page, FAQ, social, booking, Google profile.
Turn on autoresponders in Help Scout/Zendesk (or your tool).
Hour 3 — Train & test
Quick team huddle: walk the matrix, role-play two scenarios.
Test the SMS/voicemail flows and the on-call escalation.
Put the January re-onboarding template in your project tool.
Hour 4 — Safeguards
Marketing ops: confirm SMS sends stay between 8 a.m.–9 p.m. recipient local time.
Add a “holiday hours” note to your CRM sequences and support macros.
Schedule the re-onboarding emails for your paused projects now.
Resources
FCC (TCPA) Quiet Hours & Telemarketing Rules — The 8 a.m.–9 p.m. local-time window and related restrictions. Legal Information Institute+1
47 CFR §64.1200 (Delivery Restrictions) — eCFR text of the rule. ECFR.io
Atlassian / JSM: What SLAs Are & How They Work — Core SLA components (response/resolution targets). Atlassian Support
ITIL / Incident Management (Axelos) & Severity Concepts — Why severity/priority models focus teams on true emergencies. Axelos+1
Help Scout & Zendesk — Practical guides to setting autoresponders and offline messages. docs.helpscout.com+1
Nielsen Norman Group — Why clear FAQs/expectations reduce support friction. media.nngroup.com
Your Move
Holidays don’t have to be chaos. Publish clear hours and SLAs so clients know when you’ll help. Define what is truly urgent so your team isn’t dragged into every ping. Use sharp, respectful scripts so “we’re closed” still feels like service. And re-onboard projects in January with a process that screams competence. That’s how you protect your time and your reputation.