I have a confession to make: I haven't recorded a new voicemail greeting in nearly a decade. Since then, I've (hopefully) become more articulate, poised, and self-assured. But hear my voicemail recording, and you'd think I was still new to the work world, a little unsure of myself — and probably not an authority.
The season of good cheer is upon us and you can feel the anticipation in the air. Most of us will be taking at least some vacation, and we all want to get the most out of our time away. So before you re-post your standard out-of-office reply, stop and ask yourself: will the way you’ve written the message really help you do just that?
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We have tested this workaround by placing a sample vacation message on the iPhone DND mode Auto-Reply screen. To check this feature, we manually turned on the iPhone DND mode from iPhone Control Center with the above settings.
I thought it was cute and could tell that the person writing it probably spent a lot of time on the road and needed a shorthand for updating their message.
An out-of-office message is an effective way to inform people why you are not responding to their calls or messages and when they can expect a response. This information saves them from getting frustrated and avoids any negative impression from the inability to respond. If you have long-term relationships with your customers, such an auto-response system is highly significant as it avoids any inconvenience.
I’ll be at a work off-site and will have limited availability by phone and email until ___, please contact ___ for immediate needs about ____ otherwise I will respond as soon as possible”
The example above (which comes from NY Times) may not take advantage of some of the tips we mentioned, but it’s great because it’s so short. Due to its absent-minded straightforwardness, such a message can be perceived as a real, non-automated reply — as if you were so busy that you only carved out a few seconds to type these five words.
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Setting up out of office messages removes the guesswork done by customers when a response doesn’t come back right away.
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Hey there! I’m on holiday right now. I’ll try to reply to your message ASAP. Talk to you later!
Select Voicemail at the bottom of the screen. Select Personal at the top. Select the voicemail you want to listen to. Click on the play icon to listen to the message. Listen on your Weave Phone. Dial 9001 from your Weave phone. It will inform you of any new voicemails and play them. Listen on your Mobile App.
Readers, what do you like and hate in out-of-offices replies? Any stories of particularly off-key ones?
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On the other hand, there may be times where you’re so embedded in a project that you truly need to stay connected while you’re out. If that’s the case, say so clearly with a message like this: “I’m away but will be checking messages regularly, so don’t hesitate to contact me directly at any time.” Saying anything less than this may cause people to try to respect your time away and work around you, which in this case could create problems.
And although my colleague had mixed feelings about her own parents joining that population in Florida, she couldn’t be too upset when her dad suggested flying down from Boston for a Red Sox spring training game.