Summary

Typically, you’ll have a main number for your business, and you’ll play a welcome or greeting message, depending upon whether your offices are open or closed.

When it comes to Christmas, you may have a company wide shut down between Christmas and New Year or have different opening hours. This could result in your normal “Closed Greeting” – no longer giving the correct information.

The solution is to schedule a special festive greeting to be played automatically between the dates that you choose. This can all be setup in advance and automatically revert to your normal greeting at a time of your choosing.

How do I do this?

Step 1 – Agree the dates and your special festive greeting wording

Example: The Company Blue Sky will close early on Friday 22nd December 2023 at 1pm and will then remain closed until normal opening times resume on Tuesday 2nd January 2024.

During this time a special festive closed greeting needs to be played, instead of the normal Mon to Fri closed message.

Step 2 – Record the new festive greeting

Use any recording method available to you to record the new greeting.

Save as a wav file using the format 8KHz, 8 bit mono, CCITT u-Law.

TIP: An easy way to record new greetings is to leave yourself a voicemail. In MX Cloud, you can then simply right click on the voicemail and select “Save as”. This will save the wav file in the format required.

Example Festive Greeting “Thank you for calling Blue Sky. We wish you the very best of seasonal greetings and look forward to hearing from you when we re-open on Tuesday 2nd of January. Thank you and Goodbye.”

Step 3 – Create a new Holiday for the shutdown period

• From MXAdministrator, select Configure and Holidays.

• Click on the Add button.

• Enter the Holiday name as “Xmas shut down 2023”.

• Change how long the Date range is.
  • E.g. Enter the start date as 22nd Dec 2023 and the end date as 2^nd Jan 2024 (or you own specified date range).

• Click on OK to add the new Holiday.

• If you have defined Holidays such as Christmas day, Boxing Day or New Year’s day, you will see the following message;

• Click on Yes to proceed.

• Then click on Apply to save and then Close.

Step 4 – Create the new Auto Attendant Script

• From MXAdministrator, Select Auto Attendant and Auto Attendant IVR and Scripts.

• Select “New project” from the top left and give the Project a name, such as “Xmas_shut_down_2023”. 

NOTE: The project name cannot include spaces.

• A blank script editor window is now displayed.

• Click on Add underneath the Prompts window.

• Click on New and then browse to the wav file created earlier.

• Click on Play to ensure the correct file has been selected and the file format is correct.

• Click on OK to accept the greeting.

NOTE: There are no menu options for a caller to select or the ability to leave any voicemails during the Company shut down period, so you’ll need to:

• Remove the tick from “Allow input during prompts”
• Change Input source to “No input”
• Click on the three dots in the Actions window, on the right hand side
  • Select Disconnect from the Actions List
  • Remove the tick from “Allow input during prompts”
  • Click on OK
• Save the new script by pressing the Save icon in the Script Editor menu (1^st icon)
• The Progress window will be displayed as the Script is saved to MX Cloud

• Click on OK to close the Progress window and your script will look like below.

• Click on the Cross in the top right of the Script Editor window to close the Script Editor.

Step 5 – Confirm the call routing for your number

• From MXAdministrator, Select Configure and Phone Services.

• Locate the Telephone number you want to add the new festive greeting to.

• In this example the Company number is 01234 567890, and the corresponding name is MainNumber_AA.

• If you don’t see the number here, then you may be using the Default_AA (that’s the entry with no DID entered), or it is possible you don’t have any date or time of day call routing for the number.

NOTE: If you are not sure of the above, please contact the GCC Service Desk who will be able to help confirm the existing call handling.

Step 6 – Update the Schedule to play the new Greeting

• From MXAdministrator, Select Auto Attendant and Schedule.

• Select the same Name identified from step 5, to display the existing Schedule.

• When a call comes in, the schedule is checked against the first (top) rule, then rule 2, then 3 and so on until a match is identified, at which point the selected Auto Attendant script is run.

TIP: Use an overriding 24/7 Closed script and place at the bottom, then add Opening periods above to ensure there are no gaps in your schedule.

Step 6 (a) – Add an entry for closing early – Friday 22nd

• Click on New.

• Add a Name such as Early Closing Fri 22nd Dec 2023.

• In Days, change the Schedule type to “On date” and set On to “22/12”.

• Against Time untick “Active all day long” and enter From “13:00” to “00:00”.

• Set the Script to the script created in Step 4 – “Xmas_shut_down_2023”.

• Click on OK

The new Schedule is added to the bottom of the list. You can now use the Up button to move the new rule so it appears as the first rule.

Step 6 (b) – Add a new entry for the remaining shutdown time

• Click on New.

• Add a Name such as “Xmas Shutdown 2023”.

• In Days, change the Schedule type to “Holidays” and set “On the Holiday” to “Xmas shut down 2023”.

• Leave Time as “Active all day long”

• Set the Script to the script created in Step 4 – “Xmas_shut_down_2023”.

• Click on OK

• The new Schedule is added to the bottom of the list. You can now use the Up button to move the new rule so it becomes the 2^nd Rule.  

• Click on Apply to save the new Schedule.

That’s it! – the new greeting will now be played over the shutdown period and normal call handling will restart automatically on Tuesday 2nd January 2024.

Ongoing holiday and schedule maintenance

In this example we used both an “On date” and “On Specific Holiday” schedule types.

At some point before 23rd Dec 2023 you’ll need to remove (or more likely update) the 2023 entry to reflect the new 2024 dates, otherwise, if not removed or amended it will trigger again every 23^rd Dec.

It’s good practice to update all of your Holidays periodically, such as at the beginning of each year.

Here is an example set of Holidays, using a mixture of fixed repeating annual dates, such as New Years Day, and Bank Holidays which will vary from year to year.

Would you like to use a professional voice over artist instead?

You may currently be using a member of staff to record your phone system greetings, however there are benefits to using a professional voice over artist.

We have partnered with the leading Voice Prompt company, so you can have professionally recorded voice prompts, music on hold and in queue messages.

There is a wide range of voices and royalty free music (hold tracks), to help you create and mix your own prompts.

If you are interested in learning more about this option please contact our Sales team who will be happy help.

If your MX Cloud system is managed by GCC

If your MX Cloud telephony system is managed by GCC and you need assistance setting up your ‘Festive Greeting’ contact the support team who can guide you through the process.

You’ll still need to agree the dates, the specific wording and record the greeting if you’re not using a professional voice over service.

Further Information

If you have any questions about this or need assistance, then please contact the GCC Group Support Team on 0345 260 1151 or servicedesk@gccgroup.co.uk