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Social media apps are constantly evolving to make our lives a little bit easier. Messaging apps, in particular, are great for social media marketing, giving customers instant replies, even when you need to take a break away from managing your business page.
Away messages and statuses on Facebook are a great tool for businesses to help them manage an influx of customer questions and queries. They are particularly useful if you manage your small business all on your own.
You’re likely to perform all the duties yourself from being a small business owner, social media manager, and packing and sending out orders to customers. Sometimes, you just don’t have time to reply to messages or you need to focus on some more important tasks for that day.
So, if you need an extra hand figuring out how Facebook’s away messages and statuses work, we’ve got you covered.
We are diving into the three different ways you can let your customers know you’re out of the office and we’ve even done the hard work for you by giving you some templates to use.
What are away messages and statuses on Facebook?
Since the world has moved to use social media for just about everything, automated messages on Facebook are like the new automated emails that tell people you’re not in the office on a particular day.
If you use Facebook Messenger you may be familiar with automatic responses and away messages. Away messages on Facebook are auto-replies that are sent to customers when you are out of the office or on holiday.
Auto statuses are another handy feature that let customers who are viewing your Facebook Business page know your business is currently out of office.
What are the benefits of using away messages for your brand or small business?
As you can probably tell, away messages are a powerful way to automate your customer experience on social media. Rather than relying on your team to be online 24/7, these away messages can help you keep your customers up-to-date and allow your team to set better work/life boundaries too.
Let’s dive into five key reasons why your business should be using away messages on Facebook:
- Work-life balance: If you’re taking a much-needed holiday or you’re out of the office for an appointment, but worried about all the questions you may receive? Away messages can reduce that worry by giving you peace of mind that your customers aren’t being ignored. This allows you to spend some personal time away and actually enjoy it.
- Spend less time answering questions after hours: Do you get bombarded with notifications on your mobile device or computer with a bunch of new messages from customers? Away messages are a great way to maintain your boundaries and keep after-work time personal. Auto responses and away messaging statuses ensure your customers know you will get back to them within your usual opening hours.
- Better customer experience: Away messages provide response rate expectations so your customers aren’t left wondering when they will get a response from your brand or business.
- Giving customers confidence knowing their questions will be responded to: Away messages ensure customers and potential customers know their questions and queries will be responded to during business hours.
- Get a Very Responsive Badge on your Facebook page: Have you seen a Very Responsive Badge on business pages and wondered how they got it? The answer is away messages on your Facebook page. If you’re getting a bunch of questions in your messenger app and don’t have time to respond you can set up away messages for up to 12 hours. When this setting is turned on, messages received aren’t included in your Facebook page’s response rate or response time. Therefore, you’re more likely to earn a Very Responsive Badge.
As you can tell, taking advantage of Facebook’s away message feature is one of the easiest steps you can take to improve your customer experience on social media.
How do you change your status as Away on a Facebook Business Page?
Facebook lets you create Away Statuses and messages in three different ways; a one-off Away Status, an automatic Away Status for regular out-of-office hours, and automated messages sent to customers if they message you first.
In this way, you can set up a one-off Away Status for those times when you have an appointment or even if you’re social media manager is out-of-office.
Not sure how to change your status on Facebook? Here’s a step-by-step guide to make it happen:
- Log into Facebook, then click your profile photo in the top right.
- Click See all Profiles, then select the Page you want to switch to.
- Click on the Messenger icon in the top right of Facebook.
- In the top right of your Inbox, click the clock icon.
- From the dropdown menu, click Away. You can also choose to Edit away message and schedule.
By updating your status, you can keep your customers and followers in the loop of when your business is active and online. This can also boost the likelihood of potential customers getting in touch with your business on Facebook.
By making sure your business uses statuses on Facebook, you can ensure customers get in touch with you when they have a question to streamline their path to purchase.
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How do you set up an automated away status on Facebook Messenger for your office hours?
You can also set up an automatic Away Status on Facebook for your business after-hours using Meta Business Suite . This lets people know they should contact you with questions during your opening hours and when the away status is turned off.
Let’s guide you through how to get this status set-up:
To schedule away times with Facebook access:
- Log into Facebook, then click your profile photo in the top right.
- Click See all profiles, then select the Page you want to switch into.
- Click on the Messenger icon in the top right of Facebook.
- In the top right, click the Automations icon. From here:
- If you’re creating an away message for the first time, below Suggested for you find Away message and click Try it.
- If you’ve created an away message before, below Your automations find Away message and click Edit next to it.
- Below When this happens, select the days during which you want schedule away times.
- Below the days, click the dropdown menu to select a timezone.
- Below Away hours, click the dropdown menu next to a day and enter a Start time and End time. You can also Add another time range to schedule another away time for that day.
- Once you’ve set your away hours, click Save changes in the bottom right.
You can add multiple away times for your Page or delete away times by clicking on the Trash icon.
Note: Away messages aren't included in your Page's response rate or response time.
This is another easy step you can take to be proactive about your community management on Facebook and make it clear to your followers when you’re active and online.
How to set up automated responses on Facebook Messenger when you’re away
Lastly, you can set up automated messages for when a customer messages you but you aren’t in the office or you have taken an extended period of time off for a holiday.
If you’ve set up automated messages for other purposes, you’ll probably be familiar with this. In case you haven’t, here’s a step-by-step guide to turning on automated messages and personalizing them.
Start by going to your Inbox on Meta Business Suite desktop.
- Click Automated responses.
- Review the type of automated responses available, and click on the dropdown menu to expand your options. You can:some text
- Create your own:some text
- Click Custom keywords.
- Create a name for your automated response.
- Select whether you want to send the automated response on Messenger, Instagram, or both.
- Add up to 5 keywords or phrases. Remember, when someone uses any of these keywords or phrases in a message to your business, they’ll get an automatic response.
- Select the timing for when you want to send the automated message. Remember, this is the amount of time after someone sends you a message that they’ll receive that automated response.
- Customize your automated message with text, photos, videos, buttons and personalization.
- Preview how the message will look on the right.
- Click Save.
- Use suggested presetssome text
- Click one of the preset automated responses. Learn more about these suggestions.
- Follow the instructions on the following screens to set up the automated response.
- Preview how the automated response will look on the right.
- Click Save.
- Create your own:some text
Away messages are a really handy tool to make sure your customers know exactly when they’ll receive a response from you. No one wants to be left in the dark about when they’ll receive a response from a brand or business they want to shop from.
So, make sure your Facebook away message covers the timeframe they can expect a response as well as any handy information that could help them while they wait for a response. That could be sharing a link to your FAQs page on your website or even directing them to a recent blog on a related customer service topic.
By giving your customers a heads up and taking the time to set up an auto reply, you’ll keep your customers informed and happy (even before they’ve made a purchase with you).
6 away message templates to start using away messages for your Facebook business page
Ready to set up an away message on your Facebook business page? Don’t let writer’s block get in the way!
We’ve rounded up six creative ideas to help you set up automated messenger conversations with your customers and ensure you send messages that are engaging and on-brand on Facebook.
- “Hi there [customer name]. 👋 We’re glad you stopped by [business name]! We’re currently out of the office but we’ll be back on [day and time].”
- “Hey [customer name]. Thanks for reaching out to us. We will get back to you as soon as we can. In the meantime, you can check out our FAQ page here 👉 [link].”
- “Thanks so much for messaging us 💬. We wanted to let you know we are currently out of the office but we have received your message and will get back to you during office hours at [day and times]. Thanks! The [business name] team.”
- “Hi [customer name]! We’re currently on holiday and are out of the office until [day]. ☀️ 🕶 We will get back to you as soon as we can. While you wait, you can check out our FAQ page [link].”
- “Hey there [customer name]. 🙋♀️ We are currently closed but don’t worry we will get back to you first thing tomorrow during office hours! Enjoy the rest of your day.”
- “Hiya! Thanks for sending us a message. Our opening hours are [days and times]. 📆 We will get back to you during our office hours. Kind regards, the [business name] team!”
And that’s a wrap! When it comes to setting away messages on Facebook, a few simple steps is all it takes to improve your customer experience on social media. With an auto-reply set up at all times, you can keep your customers informed and ensure everyone knows exactly when you’ll be responding to their queries.
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This article has been reviewed and updated to ensure the information provided is accurate and up to date.