Relocating your business? Here's how to announce the move, protect bookings and keep customers from thinking you've shut down.
You've found a bigger salon, a better spot for the café, or more room for the workshop. Good news for you. Bad news if your customers find out from a locked front door instead of from you.
A relocation you handle well barely dents your bookings. One you handle badly looks like you've gone under. Same move, completely different outcome — and the difference comes down to what you tell people, and when.
Tell people before they hear it somewhere else
Don't wait until the last week. Give customers real notice, especially the ones with something already booked in.
A florist moving shopfronts in Ballarat, a hairdresser relocating in Townsville, a physio changing suburbs in Wagga, a sparky moving the workshop — the message is the same one every time. You're not closing. You're moving. Here's the date, here's what happens to their booking.
Something like:
"We're moving to our new shop from 1 August. Appointments already booked in are unaffected — we'll call you if anything changes. New address goes live on our Google listing and website the same week."
Use the same dates and wording on your website, Google Business Profile, email list and social pages. A regular who sees conflicting stories may think something’s gone wrong.
Handle bookings and deposits like a business that's still open
If you take deposits, appointments or scheduled work, don't let the move go quiet on people who've already paid you something.
Call anyone with something booked during the transition window. Confirm the date's still on, or reschedule it properly. Don't leave that conversation to a Facebook post they might not see.
- →Export upcoming appointments, deposits and customer contact details before the move
- →Confirm in writing which bookings proceed on the old dates and which shift
- →Keep phones and email running through the move — a disconnected number reads as "gone"
Update your Google Business Profile properly, or do it with help
This is where most relocations quietly fall apart. Your Google Business Profile is often the first thing a customer checks when they hear you've moved, and getting it wrong sends new leads straight to a competitor.
Update the address too early and Google shows customers a location you haven't moved into yet. Update it too late and the old address still shows up in searches for weeks, sending people to an empty shopfront. Miss the categories, hours or service area update, and you can drop out of local search results altogether during the exact window you need visibility most.
It's not just typing in a new address. Timing the change against your actual move date, keeping your service area accurate, and making sure the listing doesn't lose ranking history in the process — that's the part that catches most businesses out.
That's exactly the kind of thing worth getting a second set of eyes on before you move, not after your leads dry up.
Brief your team before customers start asking
Your apprentice, your salon junior, your regular supplier — they'll all get asked "are you guys still open?" before you've finished writing the announcement.
Brief the team first. One line each: new address, moving date, what to say if a customer calls the old number, where to send booking questions in the meantime.
Keep the update rhythm simple
You don't need a countdown campaign. You need three updates that land at the right time.
- →Before the move — the announcement, with a firm date
- →Moving week — a short "we're in transit, here's how to reach us" note
- →Once you're set up — new address confirmed everywhere, photos of the new place
What to do this week
If you've got a move coming up, don't leave the Google Business Profile update as an afterthought. Get the announcement out with a real date attached, lock in every booking before the move, and get your listing changed at the right moment — not before you're ready, not weeks after you've settled in.
One more thing: if gift vouchers, memberships or prepaid packages are part of how you sell, check your state's consumer law obligations before you promise anything about honouring them. That's a conversation for an accountant or legal adviser, not a blog post.
Moving premises isn't the risky part. Going quiet while you do it is.
Not sure how to time your Google Business Profile update around a move?Book a strategy sessionand we'll walk through it with you.
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