Quick summary
If you work from home, avoid publishing your exact holiday dates or destination. Tell customers when they can expect a reply, set an email autoresponder and explain how existing clients can report urgent problems.
Taking a holiday when you run a business on your own can be surprisingly difficult.
You need time off, but there is no one else to answer the phone or handle enquiries while you are away. If a potential customer contacts you and hears nothing for two weeks, they may assume you are not interested and move on to another business.
Adding a holiday notice to your website is the obvious answer. However, if you work from home, publishing your exact travel dates can also tell people when your property may be empty.
Fortunately, your customers do not need your full holiday itinerary. They only need to know how your absence will affect them.
What do your customers need to know?
Most visitors are not interested in where you are going or how long you have booked at the hotel.
They want to know:
- Whether you are accepting new enquiries
- When they can expect a reply
- Whether orders or bookings are affected
- What existing customers should do in an emergency
- When your usual service will resume
A good holiday notice answers those questions without revealing where you are, when you are travelling or whether anyone remains at home.
Why exact holiday dates can be a security risk
A notice on your website might say:
I’m on holiday in Spain with my family from 4 to 18 September. I’ll answer all messages when I get home.
It sounds friendly and helpful. It also confirms that you and your family will be away during a specific period.
This matters more when your business is registered at your home address. Someone can link the information on your website to your Companies House listing, Google Business Profile, or personal social media accounts.
A holiday message rarely creates a risk on its own. The problem is the amount of information people can piece together:
- Your website shows your full name.
- Your business address is also your home address.
- Your social media accounts show photographs of your house.
- Your website confirms your holiday dates.
- Your personal account shows that the whole family is travelling.
You may not consider any single post particularly revealing. Viewed together, they can provide a clear picture of where you live and when you are away.
Tell people about your availability, not your location
The safest approach is to focus on response times.
Instead of this:
I’m away from 4 to 18 September and won’t be checking my emails.
Try this:
I am currently taking a short break. New enquiries are welcome and will be answered from Monday 21 September.
The customer still knows when to expect a reply. You have not said where you are, when you left or whether your property is empty.
You do not necessarily have to mention a holiday at all:
I am currently working reduced hours. Please allow up to five working days for a reply.
That is enough for many service businesses.
Safe holiday notice examples
The wording you use will depend on the type of business you run and whether you plan to check messages.
If you are taking a complete break
The office is currently closed for a short break. New enquiries are still welcome and will be answered from Monday 21 September.
If you will check messages occasionally
I am currently working reduced hours so that replies may take longer than usual. Please allow up to five working days for a response.
If you do not want to publish a date
I am currently taking a short break. You are welcome to send an enquiry, and I will respond when normal working hours resume.
If you are accepting future bookings
I am taking a short break, but enquiries for future projects remain open. I will respond to new messages from Monday 21 September.
If someone else is covering urgent work
While I’m away, [name] will deal with urgent requests from existing clients sent to [support email]; I’ll respond to everything else when I return.
If you run an online shop
Orders remain open, but our usual dispatch times have temporarily changed. Orders placed this week will be dispatched from Monday 21 September.
Online shops need to be more specific because the delay affects something the customer is paying for. Tell people when their order will be dispatched before they reach the checkout.
There is still no need to explain that you are on a beach several hundred miles away.
Where should you display the notice?
You do not always need a large banner across the top of every page. Place the message where it becomes useful to the visitor.
Above your contact form
For most service businesses, the contact page is the best place for a holiday notice.
A visitor can still browse your services and decide whether to contact you. When they reach the form, they see how long the reply will take.
For example:
Please note: I am currently working reduced hours. You are welcome to send an enquiry, but replies may take up to five working days.
In the contact form confirmation
Repeat the information after the form has been submitted:
Thank you for your enquiry. Your message has been received. I am currently taking a short break and will reply from Monday 21 September.
The confirmation reassures the customer that the form worked and their message has not disappeared.
Do not hide the delay here, though. People should know before submitting the form if they will have to wait several days for a response.
In a small website banner
A site-wide banner is useful when the change affects most visitors. This may be the case if you provide urgent support, take bookings or sell products online.
Keep it short:
Reduced availability: Please allow up to five working days for a reply.
The banner should be noticeable without taking over the entire page.
On your booking page
If customers book appointments through your website, block out the dates when you are unavailable.
You do not need to explain why those dates cannot be booked. Show the next available appointments.
On your online shop
If orders are delayed, show the new dispatch date on product pages, in the basket, and before checkout.
A customer who expects next-day delivery should not discover, after paying, that nothing will be sent for 10 days.
Add an email autoresponder
Your website notice will not help existing clients who email you directly, so set an automatic reply as well.
For example:
Thanks for your email. I’m away from my desk at the moment and will be back on Monday 21 September. Existing clients with an urgent website problem can email [support address]. I’ll pick up everything else when I return.
If you provide an emergency contact method, be clear about what qualifies as an emergency. Otherwise, a request to change a photograph or update a paragraph may arrive marked as urgent.
For a web designer, a genuine emergency could include:
- A website being completely unavailable.
- A website being hacked.
- Customers being unable to place or pay for orders.
- An important form no longer working.
Routine changes can wait.
Tell regular clients privately
Regular clients should not find out that you are unavailable when they receive your automatic reply.
Send them a short email in advance:
I’ll have reduced availability during the second half of September. If you have any planned website updates, please send them to me by 8 September. You can still monitor urgent technical problems, but routine requests will be handled when normal working hours resume.
You can give established clients more detail privately than you would publish on your website.
This also gives them a deadline for planned work and may prevent the traditional Friday afternoon message asking for something to be completed before Monday.
Be careful with social media
A carefully written website notice will not achieve much if your personal Instagram account shows you checking in at the airport.
Photographs and videos posted during a holiday can confirm that you are away from home. This is especially easy to work out when your personal and business accounts are linked.
Consider saving your photographs until you return. You can still share the trip without broadcasting your location while you are there.
Check your scheduled business posts too. A post inviting people to book a call tomorrow will be confusing if your website says the office is closed.
Check what address information is public
If you work from home, search for your business and see what information appears.
Your address may be shown on:
- Your contact page
- Your website footer
- Your privacy policy
- Your terms and conditions
- Your Google Business Profile
- Companies House
- Online business directories
- Social media profiles
Some businesses are legally required to publish certain company information. Do not remove required details simply because you are going on holiday.
The point is to understand what is already visible before publishing a message that confirms when you will be away.
Prepare your website before you leave
A few small jobs will make it easier to take a proper break:
- Test your contact forms.
- Set your email autoresponder.
- Update your booking availability.
- Add any dispatch information to your online shop.
- Check that your website backups are running.
- Give current clients advance notice.
- Decide how you handle genuine emergencies.
- Review scheduled social media posts.
- Add a reminder to remove the notice when you return.
Avoid making major website changes immediately before going away. The night before a flight is not the time to change your theme, update your checkout, or move the website to a new hosting provider.
Do you need to say you are on holiday?
No.
There is nothing wrong with telling customers that you are taking a short break. It can make a small business sound more human, and most customers understand that one person cannot be available every day of the year.
However, you can keep the message more neutral if your home address is publicly connected to the business.
Useful phrases include:
- The office is currently closed.
- I am working reduced hours.
- Replies are taking longer than usual.
- Normal working hours will resume on Monday.
- Orders will be dispatched from Monday.
These statements are honest. They explain the change in service without sharing information about your private life.
Remember to remove the notice
Old holiday messages are surprisingly common.
A visitor who sees a notice referring to a date from three months ago may wonder whether the website has been abandoned. Add a reminder to your calendar or schedule the message to disappear automatically.
Once you’re back, remove the holiday information from everywhere you added it, including your website banner, contact page, form confirmation, email autoresponder, booking calendar, shop notice, Google Business Profile, social media and voicemail.
Give yourself a day or two to clear the backlog. Keep the slower-response notice live until you are genuinely ready to deal with new enquiries at your usual pace.
You are allowed to switch off
Running a business on your own does not mean being available 365 days a year.
Most customers will happily wait when they know what to expect. Tell them whether you are accepting enquiries, when you will respond and how existing clients can report a genuine emergency.
They need to know what is happening with their enquiry. They do not need to know where you are going, when your flight leaves or whether anyone is at home.
