Andy Williams may sing that it’s the most wonderful time of the year, but for a lot of business owners, the holidays feel more like the most stressful. It isn’t just the gifts, the parties, and the big dinners. It’s the stress of getting work done while everyone else is trying to finish their own holiday checklist.
For many businesses, the holidays are the busiest stretch of the year, and customers get more demanding as the calendar runs out. You can grit your teeth and push through it, or you can set up your phone system so your team works smarter and carries a lighter load.
A VoIP phone system, which carries calls over the internet instead of traditional phone lines, makes most of that setup easy. This checklist walks through what to do before the office closes, starting with a holiday voicemail greeting for business callers and ending with a quick test of everything your customers hear.
Here’s the short version:
- Record a holiday voicemail greeting for business callers and update your auto attendant.
- Set up ring groups so clients always reach someone.
- Give remote workers the same phone at home.
- Hand off your calls before you head out.
- Turn voicemails into emails you can triage.
- Test the caller experience before your first day off.
Step 1: Record a holiday voicemail greeting for business callers
Chances are your business isn’t keeping normal hours during the holidays. When that’s true, the most useful thing you can do is tell callers before they have to ask. A clear holiday voicemail greeting for business callers covers your holiday hours, when you’re back, and a quick happy holidays.
Update your auto attendant with holiday hours
A VoIP phone system with a built-in auto attendant is a lifesaver this time of year. An auto attendant is the recorded menu that answers your main line and sends callers to the right person or department. Because you can customize its greetings, it can remind customers of your holiday hours the moment they call.
Think of the auto attendant as your front door and your holiday voicemail greeting for business callers as the note taped to it. Both need to say the same thing.
On a Vaspian system, an admin can record a new auto attendant greeting straight from a desk phone or softphone. If that auto attendant is already part of your call routing, the new message plays right away.
Set your personal greeting on a Mitel 69XX phone
Vaspian stocks the Mitel 6920, 6930, and 6940 desk phones, often called the 69XX series. Here’s how to record a holiday voicemail greeting for business callers as an alternate greeting on one of them, so your everyday greeting stays saved for after the holidays:
- Press the voicemail button, enter your PIN, and press #.
- Press 9 for User Options, then 1 for Manage Greetings and Name Recordings.
- Press 4 to review or change your alternate greeting. Record it, then press # when you’re done.
- To make it live, go back to User Options, press 4 for Manage Call Answering Options, then press 2 to choose your active greeting.
When you’re back, repeat the last step and switch your active greeting back to the standard one.
If you’re looking up how to change holiday message on ESI phone systems
If you’re searching for how to change holiday message on ESI phone systems, the steps depend on your ESI model, so ESI’s own documentation for your phone is the place to start. The steps above apply to Vaspian voicemail on a Mitel 69XX phone. Either way, the goal is the same: your holiday voicemail greeting for business callers should go live before the office closes, not after the first confused customer calls.
Swap hold music for a holiday message
The same idea works for your on-hold recording. Instead of playing music while callers wait, play a recording that wishes them a happy holiday and shares your holiday hours. It answers the question they’re about to ask anyway.
Step 2: Set up ring groups so clients always reach someone
People take time off during the holidays, and they should. Everyone deserves time with family instead of sitting in the office 24/7. Work still needs to get done, though, and clients still need someone to answer their questions.
How a ring group covers for people who are out
A ring group is a single extension on your business phone system that rings several phones, either all at once or one after another. With a ring group in place, a client reaches someone even when their usual contact is out of the office.
Step 3: Give remote workers the same phone at home
In the days around Christmas, few people want to be in the office. They want to be home, relaxing with family. A VoIP phone system makes it easy to give them that option by letting them work from home.
Choose a desk phone or a softphone
A VoIP phone can be set up in an employee’s home with all the functions of their normal desk phone, and that can include a Mitel 69XX. You can go with the full setup, but it’s often simpler and cheaper to give employees a softphone instead. A softphone is a phone app that runs on a computer or mobile device. Softphones have nearly the same capabilities as desk phones, without the extra cost of hardware and maintenance.
For home setups, give everyone a quick telework security refresher from CISA and a few phone etiquette tips for working from home.
Step 4: Hand off your calls before you head out
The last hour before a day off is when calls slip through the cracks. A quick handoff makes sure your calls land with someone who’s actually working.
Forward your calls to a coworker
Before you leave, forward your extension to whoever is covering for you, and give them a heads-up that calls are coming. If you’re part of a call queue, sign out of it so callers aren’t sent to an empty desk.
Turn on Do Not Disturb when you’re truly off
Do Not Disturb keeps your phone quiet so the time off actually feels like time off. If your team uses Vaspian One Click, you can forward calls, sign out of queues, and turn on Do Not Disturb from Chrome’s side panel.
Step 5: Turn voicemails into emails
As much as we’d like it, some people never get a true day off. Managers and owners know problems can come up at any time, and they need to be the ones to handle them. They also deserve to enjoy their time off.
Let transcription sort urgent from not urgent
Voicemail to email transcription turns each voicemail into text and sends it to your inbox. You can see at a glance what needs your attention now and what can wait until you’re back in the office on January 2. Pair it with a clear holiday voicemail greeting for business callers, and people know when to expect a reply.
Catch up on missed calls
When you’re back, start with your missed calls and your transcribed voicemails. Return the urgent ones first, then work through the rest before the inbox piles up again.
Step 6: Test the caller experience before your first day off
A greeting nobody checks is a guess. Before the office closes, take a few minutes to hear what your customers will hear.
Call your own main number
Call in from a cell phone and listen. Does your holiday voicemail greeting for business callers play? Do the auto attendant hours match what’s on your website? Does the ring group reach a real person?
Plan the switch back
Write down when each change needs to come off. An alternate voicemail greeting stays active until someone switches it back, and nobody wants a holiday message playing in February.
A calmer season starts with the phone
None of this needs to be complicated. A holiday voicemail greeting for business callers, a ring group, and a quick call handoff cover the basics of keeping customers informed while the office empties out.
Keep this checklist for next year
Good small business phone systems tend to feel quiet. Bad systems make themselves known. Save this list, and next December the hardest part is deciding what to say in the greeting.
FAQ
This section answers common questions about setting up your phones for the holidays.
Why does a holiday voicemail greeting for business matter?
It tells callers your hours before they have to ask. When the greeting is clear, people spend less time dealing with missed calls, repeated messages, and small delays.
What’s the most important thing to get right?
Making the next step clear. A business doesn’t need a complicated setup if a simpler one helps callers reach the right person or know when you’re back.
How do you know the current approach isn’t working?
You usually see it in repeated friction: delays, confusion, missed handoffs, or people creating workarounds. Those are signs your holiday setup needs attention.
Does every business need the same setup?
No. The right setup depends on how your business works, who needs to respond over the holidays, and what customers expect when they call.
Where should a business start?
Start with your holiday voicemail greeting for business callers and your auto attendant hours, since that’s what every caller hears first. Then fix the spots where people already get stuck.
Is this the same as how to change holiday message on ESI phone systems?
Not exactly. The steps for how to change holiday message on ESI phone systems depend on your ESI model, so check ESI’s documentation. On a Vaspian system with a Mitel 69XX phone, you record an alternate greeting from the voicemail menu and set it as your active greeting.