How to Schedule a Ticket-based Workflow to Run on National Holidays

Why is this hack helpful?

Customer service is all about keeping your customers informed, even when your team isn’t available. By automating ticket responses for national holidays and weekends, you can ensure no customer feels ignored when they submit a ticket. This hack will show you how to create workflows that sends automated responses based on the day of the week and whether it’s a holiday.

With this setup, your customers will always know their ticket has been received, and you’ll maintain a professional, responsive image—even on days when your team isn’t working.

Steps to Set It Up

1. Write Your Emails

Before creating your workflows, draft the emails that will be sent to customers based on the day they submit a ticket. You’ll need two types of emails:

• Holiday Email: A message informing customers that your team is unavailable due to a holiday and will respond as soon as possible.
• Daily Notification Email: A standard message acknowledging the ticket submission and providing next steps.

Once your emails are ready, you can start building your workflows.

2. Create Two Workflows

You’ll need two separate workflows: one for weekdays and one for weekends. Here’s how to set them up:

1. Start a New Workflow

   • Go to Automation > Workflows and create a new Ticket-based workflow.
   • Set the enrolment trigger to include tickets submitted during the relevant time period (e.g., weekdays or weekends).

2. Add an If/Then Branch for Holidays

   • Add an If/Then branch to check if the ticket submission date matches any national holiday.
   • Manually add the holiday dates for the year as filters. For example:
     • Ticket submission date is equal to [Holiday Date 1]
     • OR Ticket submission date is equal to [Holiday Date 2]

   Note: You’ll need to update these dates each year to ensure accuracy.

3. Set Email Actions for Each Branch

   • Under the Holiday branch, add a Send email action to send the holiday email.
   • Under the None met branch, add a Send email action to send the daily notification email.

3. Schedule the Workflows

To ensure the workflows run on the correct days, adjust the workflow settings:

1. Weekday Workflow
   • Set the workflow to run only on Monday to Friday.
2. Weekend Workflow
   • Set the workflow to run only on Saturday and Sunday.

This ensures that customers receive the appropriate email based on the day they submit their ticket.

4. Enrol Contacts After Activating the Workflow

When activating the workflows, make sure to enrol only contacts who meet the criteria after the workflow goes live. This prevents emails from being sent to a large number of existing tickets unnecessarily.

Wrapping Up

By automating ticket responses for holidays and weekends, you can provide a seamless customer experience while keeping your team’s workload manageable. This hack ensures that your customers always feel acknowledged, even when your team isn’t available to respond immediately.

With a little planning and regular updates to holiday dates, this workflow will keep your customer service running smoothly year-round.

Give it a try and watch your customer satisfaction soar!