How to tell employees the business is closed
A closure text has one job: reach every person scheduled before they leave home. Most of the work happens before the storm — deciding who calls it, when, and how.
Decide the rules before you need them
The worst closure decisions are made at 5:40am by someone half awake. Settle three things now, and tell the team:
- Who makes the call. One person, with a named backup.
- By when. Pick a time that’s earlier than your earliest commute — if openers leave at 5:15, decide by 5:00.
- How people hear. One channel, always the same one. Two channels means someone checks the wrong one.
Write the decision in the first word
People read closure texts as a lock-screen preview, half asleep. Lead with the decision — CLOSED, OPENING LATE, OPEN — then the date, then what to do. The weather explanation can come last or not at all.
More closure and weather templates →
Send OPEN messages too
In a storm, silence gets read as “probably closed.” If you’re open, say so, with the same urgency you’d use to say you’re closed. It’s also your chance to tell people what to do if they genuinely can’t get in.
Always say when the next update comes
Multi-day closures generate a flood of “are we open tomorrow?” texts. Kill them in advance: every closure message ends with when people will hear next. Then keep that promise, even if the update is “still deciding, next update 7am.”
Say something about pay
It’s the first question everyone has. How scheduled hours are handled during a closure depends on your policy and, in some places, on state or local rules — this guide doesn’t cover those. Whatever the answer is, say in the message when people will hear about it, so the question doesn’t come back to you forty times.
Make sure it actually arrives at 5am
A closure text from your personal phone to thirty people is exactly the pattern carriers filter, and the failure is silent. Here’s why bulk texts quietly stop arriving.
If you use Airhorn, mark a closure as urgent. Non-urgent broadcasts written between 9pm and 8am are held until 8am so nobody gets woken up by a schedule reminder — urgent ones go out immediately.
Common questions
What’s the best time to send a weather closure text?
Before your earliest employee leaves home — and ideally the night before if the forecast is clear-cut. A night-before text that says “decision by 5am” is almost as useful as the decision itself.
Should I call or text employees about a closure?
Text first, because one text reaches everyone at once and people can read it without picking up. Then call anyone who hasn’t confirmed and is on the opening shift.
How do I know everyone got the closure message?
Ask for a reply for anything critical (“Reply OK so I know you got this”) and call the people who don’t answer. A broadcast tool with a shared inbox — Conversations, on Airhorn Plus — shows who replied in one place, which makes the follow-up list obvious.
One message, every phone, before the commute
Mark it urgent and it goes out immediately — even at 5am. Employees need no app; they just get a text.
Free for 7 days and 60 messages — no credit card. Your trial starts when you send your first broadcast, not when you sign up.