I can’t remember if this was just an outgoing voice message before routing you to an individual, or for a voicemail, but I remember a fun December phone message from a small company (I think an insurance agency) sung to the tune of a Christmas carol–something like Jingle Bells. The content was something like: you’ve reached our office during this holiday season, hope your holidays are happy, please 1) leave a message or 2) press X for who you want. Other than the tune, it wasn’t overly holiday-centric (for those who don’t celebrate the holidays) and it was cute.
Oh, it’s part of a much larger set of problems. He will put in the subject line “don’t read until Monday,” also not understanding that when I say I do not look at my email on my off days, I really do not see them, because I don’t open my work email out of work. And that I have a personal email account, that is not my work account?
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I’ll get back to you when I return to civilization. Or to an area with WiFi. Or to the office on May 10th. Whichever comes first.
Every customer interaction is important to showcase your brand personality, and auto-reply messages are no exclusion. That’s why you must make the right use of every opportunity and convert it into a good experience. Automated reply messages help you provide a great customer experience and also sets the right expectation.
We are encouraged to put up messages that say we have “limited access to email” and alternative contact for things like travel between offices and conferences. We’re technically working those days, but it may be hard to reach us.
I once emailed someone I barely knew to check on some materials he was supposed to send my boss and I received an auto-reply letting the world know that he was away in Vegas with his “boyz” to celebrate his divorce. I still don’t know why he felt this was important to share with business contacts. “I’m away for the week” was all the information I needed.
Out of office (OOO), messages can be an incredible tool to fuel your success. A good away message allows you to tell your customers that you’re away and encourages them to move within the sales funnel with more ease. Using automated messages during holidays or conferences can create social connections with recipients.
Our office VM sends an audio file to our email. I love it, because I can apply all the filing and prioritization functions of my email inbox to the voice messages. It’s the only way I ever check my VM. I don’t even remember how to listen to messages on my phone.
4. Out of office template for public holidays. If your company is closed for a national holiday, then most or all of your colleagues won’t be working. Therefore, an out of office message should tell senders to not expect a response until your company reopens.
Pro tip: The first works well for both voicemail greetings and email responders, while the next two are most appropriate for emails.
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I think the OOO you wrote in about is hysterically funny. I also think it would be out of place in a lot of offices (the board of directors that oversee my org would emphatically not think the message was funny).
I work at an animal shelter and I have included a picture of an adoptable pet when I’m on vacation – I don’t know if that comes across as annoying or not, what do you think? Basically, it’s “I’m out until X and I’ll return your message when I get back. In the meantime, take a look at Fluffiekins here (picture, link to bio). Will she be adopted before I return?”
Yup, that’s what I meant. Hearing or reading”Happy Halloween!!” in June is annoying.
Of course, very few people would be so pushy as to send you a private message about a business issue while you’re on holiday. Still, the odds are that you’ll amplify your social media reach and gain some new followers by including links to your social media in an OOO message.
This is what I’ve seen most often in my career. Problem is, the contact is almost always the admin. I’m the admin. Everyone’s idea of assistance is different. Often, I didn’t have the knowledge about the issue in order to be of any assistance. I wound up spending more time running around looking for answers than actually working on what was on my own plate. It’s exhausting. Otherwise known as “please don’t call us for unicorn problems when we handle llamas. Literally, we can’t do anything for unicorn problems.”
You don’t need to say how long you’ll be away, adds Tim Reeves, principal of the ad agency Allen & Gerritsen. “That just makes you feel guilty, particularly if you’re taking a glorious two-week vacation,” he says. “Just say when you’ll be back. It feels way better.”