Article ID: 513 | Rating: 5/5 from 1 votes | Last Updated: Wed, Dec 12, 2018 at 12:51 PM
This holiday out-of-office email is definitely on theme, if not a little passive aggressive. If you're getting emails during the holidays, why not treat everything you receive that season like the present it is, and send a thank you note?
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Home/Blog/Closing your office for Christmas? Holiday checklist everyone must read!
If yes, oops, you’ve missed her/him. I’m [David]. I’m an autoresponder. [Your Name] is out of the office. I’m all alone here. But it’s okay. After all, this is the only time of the year I’m around.
If your message is unclear or incomplete, it can create a negative impression on your customers when you are away. For example, if your message does not clearly state what dates you will be unavailable, your clients and co-workers are likely to fill up your inbox with messages, making it difficult for you to catch up when you are back. Failure to include the contact information of the person they can contact in your absence can affect your ongoing projects.
That’s why it’s a good idea to direct your recipients to your Facebook, Twitter, or Instagram where they can get in touch with you.
Thanks for your note! I’ll be OOO from [date] to [date] and will not have access to email during that time. If this is an urgent matter, please contact [Contact Name] at [contact email].
Both of these tools are designed to help you go from Email Explorer to Email Extractor – and get you from guessing to going when it comes to dealing with your email inbox.
If you need any help, I'm sure that contacting anyone else in the company will also be a waste of time.
The other being I did it once at my current job, pointed them to my boss, and he called me every time someone reached out to him. It was SUPER annoying, because not a single thing was time sensitive or really even remotely important, and if I hadn’t given a contact person they would have just waited. But I’m really the only person that does that I do, so when I’m gone, they just have to wait. :shrug:
For example, if you don’t clearly state the dates you’ll be gone, your office coworkers and clients might send you multiple emails, clogging your inbox and making it difficult for you to catch up when you're back. And if you don’t include the name and contact information in your outgoing message for the coworkers who can help in your absence, your well-earned vacation time might get in the way of ongoing projects at the company.
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.
However, I will be taking periodic breaks from binge-watching everything I’ve missed to check my email [once per day/every evening/occasionally] while I’m away.
They only discovered this AFTER the Christmas rush. Thankfully there were no client meltdowns that year or it could have been a lot worse.
A clear, thoughtful out of office message saves the caller from troubles and inconvenience caused by your unavailability as they know what they should do next. Such a system avoids the negative impact that could come from the inability to respond to calls and messages. Your clients would likely try and contact you again and again, getting frustrated and losing trust in your business.
There's no shame in using Christmas to indulge in your childhood movie tastes, but there is shame in not sharing that adorable side of yourself when people are trying to reach you during the holidays.