Amen. I have a co-worker who’s out of office message is always “spending time with my kiddos.” I don’t care. Just tell me who to contact and/or when you’ll be back.
Personally, I’d think it’s funny to receive an OOO like was in the video, at least the first time. It wouldn’t fly AT ALL at my company, but it’s at least interesting. All I really want to see is how long you’re out, and who I need to contact instead.
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Such emails are crucial, especially when you have long-lasting relationships with customers that need a prompt response. It would be very unprofessional to leave without explaining why you aren’t answering. It’s like if you are having a conversation with someone, you decide to just take off without saying goodbye, while they went to the bathroom. Rude!
Our senior leadership has admitted to not checking voicemails since we started working remotely…almost 15 months ago. It made me feel so good. I hate voicemail.
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Mac? Well, he clearly works hard and plays hard. Which is totally on-brand with the vibe that Marriott's Moxy hotels exude. In summary? Points for being young and able to dance the night away. Double (mid-life adult) points for staying on brand while doing so.
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Hi, Thank you for your email! I am on vacation until [MM/DD]. Vacations are not for checking email, so I won’t be doing that. During my absence, please contact [name] at [email] or [phone] because she’s checking email. Not me. Really, I’m not checking email.
We have one key administrative assistant who works part time and I always forget — I appreciate that she sets an OOO every day because her department is very deadline driven and it helps me to remember that if I need something from them, I need to connect with her in the morning. We also have some staff who work the school year calendar and others who are year round; the OOO is so helpful in the summers!
An old boss had a pet peeve about this so I became very conscious of making sure that I listed out who to contact on what day… before the group email. So it looked something like this:
Work-Life BalanceHow to Write an Out-of-Office Message During the COVID-19 Pandemic—Plus Examples!
I actually think that’s a really helpful out of office message? I appreciate how clear it is about who to contact in which circumstance (so you’re not having to do the awkward dance of trying to track down the right people while not inconveniencing the wrong ones), while maintaining a friendly-but-firm boundary around the vacationing person’s time (since none of the options include things like “here’s my cell phone number!”).
From the familiar to the more unexpected, peruse some of the different uses for automated text replies.
Use a voicemail with the capability to record several different messages. Excellent customer service takes a little extra work. The good news is, once you get your messages recorded, they are set. You may need to change your holiday greeting message to fit the season, but all of the others will be okay. Write your scripts before you record!
With all these changes, the simplest tasks come saddled with a lot of extra questions. Take the out-of-office message. Do you really need an out-of-office autoresponse if you haven’t seen an office since March? The simple answer is yes.
Meanwhile, I do sometimes put up long ones when I will be away for some days during a season in which there are a confluence of three or four very likely reasons someone would contact me, and who else they need to contact isn’t the same. Like, it’s high llama grooming season, and generally during this month I get two or three requests per week for each of llama bleaching (for which my backup is Stella), llama shaving (for which it’s Arturo), and llama perming (for which it’s Carter). My message says I’ll be out until blah blah, and if it’s not an urgent llama grooming issue, I’ll get back to you after that, but meanwhile, for urgent llama grooming here’s who to call.