So now this email is working overtime with the flood of enquiries, spam, well-wishes, and broken hearts.
Hi, Thanks for your email. I am out of the office right now and will not return until [MM/DD]. Fortunately for you, our resources never take time off and we’ve got this awesome [ebook/brochure/infographic/etc] that I think you would enjoy. I’ll reply to you as soon as I get back into the office.
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Yup. That’s almost verbatim what I do. It’s the standard around here and now I’m grateful for that!
If your request is urgent, please send your request to [contact name] at [contact email].
Thank you for your email. I am out of the office on annual leave/in meetings with very limited access to email until [Date]. If your query is urgent please contact [Team Shared Mailbox], otherwise I will respond on my return.
A. No; serving students and helping to ensure their safety remain our top priorities. As with previous winter breaks, all residence halls are closed except International House and Ottawa West, with limited staff available to meet student needs, such as Front Desk employees (see the next question). Additionally, senior staff will be available to respond to any urgent student matters.
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.
In conclusion, an eager customer trying his or her best to reach out to you is the last person you want to disappoint. Make their day special with an unexpected or quirky autoresponder email that your customers wouldn’t have thought they’d see in their inbox in a million years.
What I really hate is when I get back to the office and haven’t taken the 10 minutes to go into our labyrinthian voicemail system, remove the out of office voicemail message, and record a new one (without being interrupted, stuttering, etc.) and some SUPER DUPER HELPFUL person feels the need to InFoRm mE in their voicemail message that I sTiLl HaVe My OuT oF oFfIcE mEsSaGe Up!!!1!
When we were working from home (we’re mandated to be back in the office now), my voice mail message was something like “I check voice mail, but if you want a faster answer, please send me an email at [email protected]” And it’s amazing how much more to the point emails are than voice mails! Much less “Well, this is unusual (it’s not) and needs the whole backstory (it doesn’t)” and 15 minutes later getting to the actual question (“can I do this thing that a regulation clearly indicates I can’t do”)
(Email Signature) 3. Memorial Day Closed Email. Our office will be closed on Monday, May 31st in observance of Memorial Day. We will reopen on Tuesday, June 1st at 8:00 a.m. Our sincere gratitude to those brave men and woman who have served our country and paid the ultimate sacrifice. Best regards, (Email Signature) Overview: Your Memorial Day
Hi. Our office will remain closed for Christmas. We assure you that all your emails will be answered as soon as we return to the office. Merry Christmas!
You’ve worked to make your email clear, and you’ve carefully edited to streamline your writing.The body of your email might well be perfect, but it can all go awry if you use the wrong sign-off. It’s just a word or a short phrase, followed by your signature, and yet finding the right tone to close your email often requires a surprising amount of thought and finesse.
I actually think that’s a really helpful out of office message? I appreciate how clear it is about who to contact in which circumstance (so you’re not having to do the awkward dance of trying to track down the right people while not inconveniencing the wrong ones), while maintaining a friendly-but-firm boundary around the vacationing person’s time (since none of the options include things like “here’s my cell phone number!”).
My fav is the one I got that was “I’ve retired and I won’t be checking this account EVER AGAIN!”
Part of me would really appreciate an OOO that says, “I can’t get back to you today because I’m out robbing a bank.” Part of me would dread that, because I’d probably become that person’s court-appointed attorney.
To my mind, it’s just a really bad idea to mass delete stuff that comes in while you’re out. You never know if those emails contain important (though non-actionable) information that you’ll need. You really can’t expect people to resend information like that once you’re back, especially if you were cc’d on something.