Maybe I'm over-reading your advice or observations here, but, like, being straightforward and honest without being deliberately blunt or getting in your bon mots is basically the expectation at most of the companies I've worked at. Professional politeness is fine, and good, actually, as long as it's not a cover for other, less praiseworthy behaviors, and what constitutes "important" is going to vary wildly, depending on whose boss is the one assigning the tasks — my boss may not care that an employee's access to a system gets delayed by a week or two, but the employee whose sales are dependent on having access to that system certainly does, for entirely understandable reasons. This site requires JavaScript to run correctly. Please turn on JavaScript or unblock scripts Home Buying 101 First Time Homebuyer Experienced Homebuyer Home Loan Process Refinance 101 Cash-Out Refinance Consolidate Debt Lower Your Monthly Payments Reduce Mortgage Insurance Higher Loan-to-Value Loans FHA Insured Conventional Home loans VA Home Loans USDA loans 203k Approved to Move Loan Officers Customer Hub FAQs Glossary Calculators Contact Us Mobile App Videos About Rates Blog > What to Say in Your Out-of-Office Email and Voice Messages When You Take Time Off What to Say in Your Out-of-Office Email and Voice Messages When You Take Time Off
Thank you for your email. I will be out of the office from *date* to *date* and will have limited access to email / will not have access to email. If you require immediate assistance, please contact *Name* at *email*. I will do my best to respond promptly to your email upon my return.
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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.
Same. All you need to know is I am not available and you are not going to hear from me until such and such date and contact so and so if you need something sooner.
My coworker tends to set his OOO for people to contact me, but he never bothers to tell me he’s going to be out of town and people may be contacting me. I’ll find out when I happen to email him and get the response. Not a huge deal, but the heads up would be nice! What if I was also on vacation?
I usually put my boss in my OOO, because if something is so urgent that it needs to be delegated RIGHT NOW then it’s urgent enough that my boss should know about it, and he’s also in the best position to know who on the team to delegate it to based on everyone’s workloads and what can be dropped. But the most likely result is that whoever is emailing me either waits for me to get back because it’s not that urgent or goes to the next/backup person based on our central documentation about who to contact for particular issues.
Informal approach helps your clients think of you as of a human being. This alleviates some of the annoyance they may feel because of not receiving a proper reply. Generally, making people laugh is a great way to make people remember you. Do that and your clients won’t switch to a competitor.
Earlier this year, British comedian Steve Coogan underscored a growing trend to rethink the OOO when he used it not to advertise his own absence, but rather the return to our screens of his blazer-clad alter ego, hapless media personality Alan Partridge. Written in the broadcaster’s inimitable voice, it had stern words for anyone who dared email him: “I’m not in the office so both cannot and will not respond to your email,” it began. “If your email is urgent, perhaps you should have tried calling instead. The very fact you were content to type out your query long hand and settle back to wait for a reply suggests you can wait, even if you’ve put a red exclamation next to your email to make it stand out in my inbox. Won’t wash with me, that.”
But nope, we’ve created a world where “I have a dentist appointment and won’t be in until 10 today” is cause for alarm.
Set a minimum delay for auto-responses. For example, if you set a minimum delay of 1, the eDesk will send the OOO template 1 minute after receiving the customer’s message. If you don’t set a minimum delay, eDesk will auto-respond immediately upon receipt of a message.
Thank you for your email. I’m out of the office and will be back at (Return Date). During this period I will have limited access to my email.
Hello, our office will remain closed for during the Christmas period. We assure you that all your emails will be responded to as soon as we return to the office. Merry Christmas! Regards, [Name/Company name]
This is the perfect way to reduce the sheer email volume that you’ll return to, with a little anarchy involved…
I wouldn’t be surprised if she’s had experiences in the past with people not getting an immediate answer then upping the urgency–we’ve had letters about such coworkers here. There’s an email, then a followup email, then a chat message, then a phone call, then they walk over, all within ten minutes of the initial email.
250? That could easily be only 2-3 days of emails. You can’t declare “email bankruptcy” for only a few days worth of emails. I average about 200 a day, so if I was on vaca and came back to only 250 mails, I would be putting in a ticket with IT, thinking something was broken.
Hello and thanks for your email. I’m out of the office right now, but will get back to you as soon as I can. Expect a reply Monday latest. (If you need something right now, please email [EMAIL]. In the meantime, check out this new [ARTICLE LINK] that our team just released last week. It’s a labor of love – one that’s short to read, easy to implement, and–most importantly–free of charge. Talk to you soon.
Some of my coworkers have started putting “Thank you for your email” at the beginning of their out of office replies. Management loves it, but I think it’s too ingratiating and I cringe when I read it. These are junior-level staffers, so maybe it makes sense in that context? Anyway, I refuse to put that in my out of office messages.