If you manage a social account for a retail brand with a brick and mortar store (or maybe for a restaurant, bar, or taproom), this is a trick I started using this year!

Sometimes people will contact us via DM outside of office hours with a question that could use a faster reply that we’re able to respond with (I’m a social team of one and manage 4 different accounts). I started adding not only these are the hours we’ll reply ASAP during, but also you can call the store if you can’t wait for a reply & the stores’ phone numbers.

And during holidays, I change the away messages to reflect that we are closed & will reply ASAP when we reopen the next business day.

I’m not sure if anyone actually ends up calling the stores when they get the message, but it at least gives them an immediate reply & an avenue to get a faster answer!

What automatic reply tricks have you learned?