You may not think it, but an auto-attendant is an important part of your business. It is typically the first point of contact with your customers, as they will call your main number with sales inquiries, troubleshooting questions, etc.
The reason I did it was that the first time I took maternity leave, I came back to thousands of irrelevant emails. It was a chore to sort through them, and finding the ones that were still relevant was like finding a needle in a haystack. And it wasn’t just a waste of *my* time – I often had to reach out to email senders only to hear that no further action was needed, so I was wasting their time too.
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5. Out of the Office this Week with Alternative Contact Email. [Greeting] I will be out of the office this entire week. For all urgent matters that need immediate assistance, then please contact
5. Out of Office Template #5 For the Person Who Will Be Checking in (Reluctantly) Hello, I’m out of the office until [date]. However, I will be taking periodic breaks from binge-watching everything I’ve missed to check my email [once per day/every evening/occasionally] while I’m away.
Between now and then, I recommend escaping the summer heat with a delicious Aviation & Tonic. Here’s my recipe:
While this sounds kind of onerous, I don’t think it’s actually a bad idea to say “I don’t have this info but I’ll get back to you when I find out” if it’s going to take a while.
The autoresponder messages give information like how long the person you are reaching is unavailable and who else is the person in the absence and from when will the person be back available. Make sure the message is not too lengthy and is set up easily and conveniently understood by the email users. Try to manage your absence in such a way that the client doesn’t get affected and uninformed.
Ha! Maybe she was short-circuiting someone who would send an email and then come over to her desk 5 minutes later to “see if you got my email.”
I wouldn’t hate voicemail so much if people were better at leaving voice mails– If your voice mail is much longer than 30 seconds, you’re doing it wrong! If it’s just “It’s Bob, call me back”, you’re also doing it wrong! The voicemail sweet spot is something like this:
I’ll reply to your message promptly, after I delete the dozen email newsletters about losing weight. If your question or request is not time sensitive, wonderful! If you require immediate assistance, please send contact to [insert name] at [contact email].
Ha – I didn’t watch the video but still definitely get the condescension! It’s a LOT of extra explaining and direction when something like, “if you need immediate assistance, please contact Fergus at…” will do. In my opinion, cutesy stuff like this is mildly entertaining at the beginning but gets dumb/annoying shortly thereafter. Not just with OOO messages, but other instances where companies try to make being “cool/funny/laid back” parts of their brand in really obvious ways.
Thank you for getting in touch! I’ll be out-of-office from [date] to [date] and will not be checking email during that time.
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The weather has changed, so I have decided to book myself a little break in the sunshine.
I appreciate your message. I am out of the office currently with no office email access. However, return on the following [date-of-return].
My OOO is almost always “I’m out of the office and will be returning on x date.” My email sig has instructions along the lines of “for questions on x, email this list” for a couple of the more common areas people would contact me about that might need an urgent reply (as the lists go to more than just me, obviously), but most people have finally figured out to contact those lists to start with, anyway. If I were in the middle of a project or something that needed to be moved along in my absence, the project teams usually know when we’re out, but I’d put a back up in that case, if needed, but generally there’s not much to be gained by a longer OOO from me.
Not exactly a neutral audience, though. A number of people following the account, if not most, will be following because they share the same sense of humor. Likewise people @ed by friends.