A. To best serve your customers, whether its students, alumni, consumers or other UToledo stakeholders, all department/office and individual voicemail and out-of-office email messages should let them know that UToledo is closed for winter break. Examples of messages you may want to use are below.
While injecting a little humor into your vacation email message can sometimes be a good idea – depending on your company and contacts – avoid oversharing and keep it professional at all times.
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Whether you prefer to keep it simple or have a little fun with your OOO message, it’s always essential to include the basics so you don’t have a mountain of emails to respond to when you get back. Then, all there’s left to do is stay out of your inbox and enjoy your vacation fully!
My favorite one that I’ve heard is from TV. “You’ve reached {name}. I can’t answer. Don’t waste my time.”
I am out of the office on leave and will return on September 25. Please contact Jean Awad at [email protected] in my absence.
When you are not in the office for more than a day, telling people who contact you that you might not be checking or responding to your emails right away will help them complete work in your absence. Setting up an out of office message can help you communicate this information. This article will describe how to write an out of office message and provide examples of effective message formats.
Erin Ollila is a content strategist and writer who believes in the power of words and how a message can inform — and even transform — its intended audience. Reach out to her on Instagram at @ErinOllila, or visit her website erinollila.com.
I came across a woman’s Maternity Leave OOO message which said “All emails will be deleted upon my return. If it still urgent after (return date), send another message.”
One of the real joys this holiday season is the opportunity to say thank you and wish you the very best for the new year. Warmest thoughts and best wishes for a wonderful holiday and a very happy new year. Wishing you the gifts of the season — Peace, Joy, Hope. Merry Christmas.
If you are going out of office but still leave something interesting for your contacts like poetry, that’s something really out of the box. This is a truly amazing OOO message, and reverting with poetry will surely make the receiver read it twice as emails are the last place one imagines reading poetries. Especially closing with “If all else fails, clear your cache…” is one good way of telling people that they will need proper help and it will anyway take time before they’re all set. Have a look at it here:
Think about whether you want to leave a forwarding email, which is helpful for dealing with any loose ends you forgot about, in the excitement of leaving.
What I really hate is when I get back to the office and haven’t taken the 10 minutes to go into our labyrinthian voicemail system, remove the out of office voicemail message, and record a new one (without being interrupted, stuttering, etc.) and some SUPER DUPER HELPFUL person feels the need to InFoRm mE in their voicemail message that I sTiLl HaVe My OuT oF oFfIcE mEsSaGe Up!!!1!
For all support requests/needs, please reach out to [email protected] and one of my colleagues will be happy to assist you.
And while we all have grace for friends and family who seem to take forever to get back to our messages, customers generally expect this degree of promptness when they text a business.
Q. Will Supply Chain, Purchasing, Receiving, Mail Services and other such departments be open during winter break?
Who hasn’t longed to write something similarly huffy? Well, LA-based designer Paul Woods, for one. Woods is also the author of How to Do Great Work Without Being An Asshole and suggests opening your OOO with this: “Dear sender, As you are already aware, I am on vacation. However, as it appears that you have flagrantly ignored the numerous emails, in-person conversations and messages over the past week communicating this, below you can find a detailed recap what I will not be doing until my return…” It’s a recap that extends to wearing clothes, even in public, and moderating his consumption of hard liquor.
Have you sent a proper farewell email to the whole office, thanking everyone and wishing them well?