“I am spending time with family today – some things are MORE important than work.”
Is this heaven? No, it’s Iowa. That’s where I’ll be for the next couple of days, giving my last out of town keynote of the year (yay!). I don’t know if there really is a Field of Dreams, but I’ll be in search of it in between checking emails and getting back to you as quickly as I can. If you need something while I’m stuck in a corn field, you can send a note to my assistant and she will be happy to help you.
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Try something like, "For immediate assistance, please contact Boss Name at [email protected]."
Until I’m back at the office, here are the links to my social media: [FACEBOOK LINK] [TWITTER LINK] [INSTAGRAM LINK]
Did you email me about [SERVICE]? Great! Read what our customers are saying about how awesome their experience has been. [LINK TO TESTIMONIALS]. Best Regards.
Dear Customer, Our office will be closed from [date] until [date] and close again for December 31 and January 1 to welcome the New Year. We wish you the warmest holiday. Regards. [Company name] ——. Dear Customer, Please note that on [day], [date], is [holiday name]. The store will be closed all day and will open again at [time] on [Day].
As a matter of courtesy – and to give you the peace of mind needed to be present wherever you are going (either away from the office or on vacation) – you should send each of your clients a simple email to let them know you’ll be away. Below I’ve offered some sample text for to you use as a template. Feel free to make it a TextExpander snippet, Gmail canned response, or whatever. Just use it (or something like it). Please.
Yeah, announcing you were going to delete emails unread and expecting the sender to resend when you return would NEVER fly in my office. I’d get executive complaints about that, especially if it went to a client or outside party – if a client can’t reach you, they will reach out to someone else who may not work at your organization and you lose business. I feel like this delete-it-all philosophy would only work for an entirely internal role where timelines are more relaxed, and even then, I feel it’s a bit unprofessional to foist your own catch-up work onto others, especially if they’ve been backfilling for you while you were OOO.
Sometimes teams need the extra nudge to disconnect...here are our tips for getting your team to unplug from email over the holidays.
Using email copy creatively can go miles when using an autoresponder. The mundane, repetitive language is the number one reason behind people sighing and not the unavailability of the concerned person. Getting creative with the email copy can de-escalate the frustration and even put a smile on their face. Everyone needs a break, and words can convey it beautifully like this example.
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.
Same! If I’m on vacation then I say I have no access to emails. Even if I’m just sitting on my couch all week.
Very true, if the options came in reverse order (or maybe emergency first followed by not-urgent followed by urgent) that would be a little better.
Need inspiration? Here are five out-of-office message examples from the career development site guaranteed to spread holiday cheer professionally:
My coworker went out on disability for surgery and left an ominous OOO saying she would be out and did not have a return date, multiple people contacted me bc they were freaked out. The message suggested people reach out to me in her absence and spelled my name wrong, we’ve been working together for 4 years.
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She’s not sure how long that author would’ve argued with her computer until she turned it off.