3 Quick Things To Do Before You Head Out For The Holidays

December 6th, 2022
3 Quick Things To Do Before You Head Out For The Holidays

Chances are you and your staff are taking some well-deserved time off in the next few weeks. As a practice owner or office manager, you may find it tough to get away because your thoughts turn back to the practice.

To help eliminate added stress so you can enjoy time with your family and friends, or sitting on a beach somewhere, here are three quick things to do before you go.

1. Set up autoresponders for your e-mail and voicemail

There’s nothing more frustrating for a patient than to reach out because they need something and, instead of getting a response, they get nothing. You can take care of that by setting up e-mail autoresponders (directions below) and updating your voicemail.

Make sure that in each message you let people know how to get a hold of someone if they need something urgent.

Oh, and leave yourself a note to remove the autoresponder or update your voicemail when you’re back.

How To Set Up E-mail Autoresponders For:

Microsoft Outlook

Gmail

iCloud (Apple)

2. Adjust your hours on your Google Business Profile (formerly Google My Business)

Google allows you to set Holiday Hours specifically for temporary changes, like vacations or holidays.

Since many people rely on Google to give them up-to-date information on businesses, you need to make sure to let Google know when you’ll be closed or have reduced hours. There’s nothing more frustrating for a prospective patient than fighting holiday traffic to get across town to a doctor, only to find that the office didn’t take 30 seconds to update their holiday hours.

Google even sends out e-mail reminders to the account admin, trying to get accurate information. If you’re not sure who the admin is, or you just want to be proactive and update hours now, you can go to https://support.google.com/business/answer/6303076 and set your holiday hours.

3. Make sure your practice’s data is backed up!

Did you know that more than 250,000 properties a year experience flooding from burst water pipes, most of which happen in the winter months? Coming back to the office to find that your computers are sitting in 6 inches of water (or ice) could really ruin your week. This is just one of many reasons that you need to make sure all your company computers and data are backed up (off-site).

If you’re not sure if your data is backed up (and I mean 100% sure), then we can help you with that.

You can click here to schedule a brief 10-minute call and we can ask a few simple questions to help determine if your data is backed up and secure. If not, we can offer solutions to get that done fast.

You deserve time off from working to relax and recharge and we hope these three tips will help you to make the most of that time this holiday season!