Or, worse, when someone has left the organization and the organization hasn’t bothered to put up an OOO, so I’m just emailing a blackhole until I call or someone finally checks that inbox. I never fail to set up my OoO reply, and yet most of my external contacts don’t get them. Let’s say I work for LlamaCombs, with an name(@)llamacombs.com address, and this is a company who has two clients AlpacaBrush and VicunaShampoo. I work primarily with the second, and their internal directory lists my contact info as name(@)vicunashampoo.com. It works because any e-mail sent to the second address is auto-forwarded to the first. Except it messes up OoO replies big time. Because the auto-reply is sent to my own alternate address, not to the original sender, and I have no way to change that.
When you’re out for the holidays, how can you express your thrill for the season without sounding, well, cheesy?
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If you’re out for several days, then sure, say when you’ll be back and leave info for who to contact in the meantime.
I wrote the above comment off the top of my head. I wish I had time to rewrite and edit it. I would have changed “their goldfish” to “a spider they accidentally stepped on”, and would have added more detail to the story of the sister’s death (e.g. “her Pomeranian yapping” rather than the less descriptive “her dog barking”). Unfortunately, I could not do the thorough writing job required for that comment because someone close to me recently … – The person whose out of office advertised his gig on the weekend, for anyone in travelling to [city] – The people in a certain department who have taken to saying things like “if you really need to contact me, call 000-YYY-XXXX where Y is the square root of [insert numbers] and X is the year plutonium was discovered.” – The ones where people have an auto response saying they only check their emails once a day between 1-2pm – “I’m on research leave and I may be slow to reply.” (Whereby it is guaranteed they will reply immediately, because academics do not *really* take breaks).
Here is a quick checklist of 65 messages that will be useful to make your holiday closing smooth and efficient, from setting gone-for-the-holiday notifications to resetting thermostats.
It was a commodities trading firm. I still barely know what they do. But, I would answer the phone, listen to whatever they said, understand not much and then I would say “lemme put you on hold” and then I would turn to the nearest person not on the phone and I’d say something dumb like “They’re calling about like…salt maybe?” And then I’d transfer to that person and they would figure out who it went to. (They all knew who was trading what that day. Nobody ever told me.)
This message is really long. I’d probably just hit delete and try to get in touch with someone else.
Website: http://www.effective-business-letters.com/Letter-Informing-about-Holiday-Closure.html
OUR TIP: Our prompts configurator helps you find the right voice and also helps you with text suggestions, selection of music and speakers demos. With just a few clicks, you can compile your selection or desired prompt(s) and send it to us https://voxendo.com/audiodemos/text-demos/english/public-holiday/public-holiday-message-demo-ben.mp3 It is often used for Christmas/New Year and Easter. But it can also be used for normal holidays or vacation periods.
Hi, Happy holidays! I am currently out of the office, with no email access. I’ll be returning on [date] and will get back to you as soon as I can. Happy holidays!
I use a basic OOO message – “Hi! I’m out of the office x date(s). I will return your email when I’m back at my computer on x date. If you have an urgent matter, please contact x or y. Have a nice weekend/holiday/etc!/Thanks!” My office WANTS us to use more personal and witty OOO messages like this article’s message. And that stresses me out. I don’t want to spend time worried about whether my OOO is witty. I don’t want to annoy other people just looking for basic info like when am I back and who they can contact in the meantime. I correspond a lot with third parties on serious matters (legal), and I don’t think a message like that is appropriate. So, I just keep using my basic message and hope my supervisor’s supervisor doesn’t email me and see that I’m not “trying.” Ugh.
Our sales and administration offices will be closed from 21st December until 2nd January 2019 ...
COMPLETELY agree. Every time I see an OOO for a two-hour doctor’s appointment I have to fight the urge to reply with “How much are you paid?” because I know there is no scenario in which I would have to explain myself if I don’t answer an email for a few hours and if you are that important you better make a LOT more than I do.
If you think someone else at First Round Capital might be able to help you, feel free to email my assistant, Fiona ([email protected]) and she’ll try to point you in the right direction.
If people know you are on vacation or maternity leave, for instance, they are more likely to wait for your return to follow up. If you are at a work conference, however, they might still expect you to check your email or provide updates.
The idea for this one is to pick your favourite Christmas carol and repurpose it for your out-of-office response. It’s festive and sure to get a laugh! (Whatever you do, just don’t pick Baby It’s Cold Outside).
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