Scared of offending a coworker who may or may not celebrate the holidays? Worry not — I’ve got the perfect email for you. If this OOO message does anything particularly well, it’s that it respects the differing views, religions, traditions, and opinions of your coworkers — while amusing so many others.
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Many businesses are using automated messages for retaining their customers and setting good examples for other businesses to follow. Using the auto reply messages rightly helps the business from taking impromptu decisions.
Get out of the office early.Make sure you inform your managers and co-workers that you will be leaving early. Do something fun since you are out early from work. Go for a movie or the happy hour at your favorite restaurant or bar with your co-workers.
If that’s truly what you intend, great. But if not, you may want to take a deep breath and try this: “I am currently on vacation and not accepting emails. Please contact x for any issues while I’m away.” This approach is refreshingly honest and clear. And as long as you’re comfortable with the competence and availability of your back-up contact, you shouldn’t feel funny or guilty about going this route at all.
In case of pressing issues that need urgent attention, feel free to reach out to [CO-WORKER NAME]. Give them a call on [PHONE NUMBER] or send a message to [CO-WORKER EMAIL].
So what makes a good automated response that will give you the reassurance you need to keep your work email under control so that you can truly enjoy your holiday?
Having a professional automated message when you are busy enough to answer customer queries right away can set the right tone for your business and inform customers when they can expect to receive the response.
Chatbots are now among the most preferred communication channels between customers and brands. However, not many businesses get their chatbot strategy...
Don’t you worry: while I pretend to be Santa in front of my kids, my colleague, Hannah, will cover for me. Just email her at [email protected] if you need urgent assistance.
She continues: “However, there should be a way for whoever is emailing you to have an urgent request handled, and that should be included as part of your OOO as well as being known to your work team (supervisor and colleagues). That might look like including a coworker's email on your OOO or it might simply involve setting a forwarding rule for while you're away, so that your email goes to the colleague who's covering.”
Remember to make sure your auto-reply has a limit to how often it sends replies to any one address. If they reply to every single email they recieve, they can cause problems: https://www.reddit.com/r/talesfromtechsupport/comments/420oan/companywide_email_30000_employees_autoresponders/ I actually had that happen while I was on vaca, a travel agency e-mailed me with an update about my vacation from a no-reply mail box and triggered my auto reply, which triggered their “This is not a monitored mailbox” auto reply to the tune of 80,000 messages in my mailbox. It completely filled up my “available” space, so everytime I logged in and thought I had them cleared out, more would pour in. It took DAYS to delete all of them.
There is never a time that isn’t right to share the love. Do well to share these messages with friends and loved ones.
Hi, Thank you for your email! I am on vacation until [MM/DD]. Vacations are not for checking email, so I won’t be doing that. During my absence, please contact [name] at [email] or [phone] because she’s checking email. Not me. Really, I’m not checking email.
I struggle with naming a contact too. My current job doesn’t really have emergencies, so while my second in command could handle stuff I normally would, should she have to? Also, 98% of the people that would get my OOO would know who to go to anyway if they actually needed something urgent. I hate to make someone else’s life harder for my own convenience when it’s not even needed.
In case of pressing issues that need urgent attention, feel free to reach out to [CO-WORKER NAME]. Give them a call on [PHONE NUMBER] or send a message to [CO-WORKER EMAIL].
Of course I’ll still be glad to hear from you – try me at this email: [insert email].