It's December 1st in the North East and businesses are turning their attentions to Christmas...
You Need A Better Out Of Office MessageWe don't need professional politeness. We need honesty.
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I used to know someone who had a snarky message about how “if this is an emergency, there are no actual emergencies in my field,” and then encouraged someone to Google for “goats in trees” and calm down. Yes, she was allowed do that in her office.
In my office, most of the phone lines just didn’t even have voicemail, because we already got enough abuse in regular phone calls (university parking office). When we switched to VOIP, that went away, but at least now they get *badly* transcribed into our email boxes…
If you need immediate assistance during my absence, please contact (Contact Person with email and phone). Upon my return, I will reply to your emails in a timely manner.
The big issue I have with the example in the post is that not only is it unnecessarily long-winded, but you have to listen through all the chattiness to get to the “here’s who to contact in a real emergency” part. The tone does rub me wrong, but I’m willing to roll with that as a personality/company culture thing.
For those of you arguing that entrepreneurs and salespeople must always be available, I present to you Exhibit A. While this is specific to Yesware (and you should check out their other OOO examples), it's easy enough to tweak to fit your industry.
Thank you for your message! I'm out of the office from X DATE to Y DATE and will not be checking email. I'll follow up with you as soon as possible upon my return. If you have an urgent request, please contact XX person at YY email address.
Purchasing and receiving for The University of Toledo Medical Center and clinics will run operations as usual during winter break, with no interruption to service.
This email is humorous because anyone going on a family trip knows the ups and downs of having everyone together on the table. Harry’s both sarcastic and light-hearted same time giving us this amazing getaway auto-reply that most of us couldn’t agree more to:
Mine said this when I was in the hospital and I didn’t know if I’d be back in two weeks or six.
On the other hand, you can get more interesting or playful with subject lines such as:
Use your auto-response as an opportunity to connect your customers with a sales opportunity! Hey there, thanks for shopping Patagonia! We’ll respond to your message ASAP. While you wait, have you checked out or semi-annual sale? https://txt.st/PQBLPE
Set your out of office messages and determine who monitors division and department messages.
It is important to understand that your auto-response message can go to anybody, even your top management people. Try to avoid any embarrassment by taking the time to proofread the message.
Thank them for their email. Even though you're not actually responding to the email, you still need to mind your Ps and Qs. After your greeting, add "Thanks for your email."
Everything’s a little off-kilter as we continue to contend with the COVID-19 pandemic. It’s hard to step away from work when the “office” is the dining room table you can see from your couch. It feels a little strange to take PTO when travel and boisterous family gatherings seem like a distant memory. You might be working odd hours so you can juggle childcare and other responsibilities. Or maybe your full-time job became a part-time one (or an on-hold one) as a result of the economic downturn that hit along with the coronavirus.