When one of my colleagues went on vacation, he sent an out-of-office message that was both clever and smart. First, he sent the recipient on an imaginary scavenger hunt to “the highest peak of the tallest mountain.” He used humorous absurdity to make it clear that he would not be checking email while he was away.
In this image, you're letting people know you're OOO with a "Missing" notice on a milk carton. Genius. Just be careful — this sort of autoresponder is best for internal emails, not for autoresponders that get sent to prospects and clients.
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Holiday Closures. Thank you for calling [Agency Name]; we are currently closed in observance of [holiday name]. We will return on [Date] at [Time]. If you would like to reach our Dial by Name Directory, please press 1. To leave a voicemail, please press 2. A representative will contact you upon our return. To repeat this menu, please press the
Naturally, you want to help your clients and other business associates to contact you in the best and easiest way possible. For that to happen, you should provide out of office messages when you are not available.
This is true! The nuclear option also helps the recently returned vacationer understand what is a priority and what isn’t. But, as boyd wrote, “if you just turn off your email with no warning, you're bound to piss off your friends, family, colleagues, and clients.” The blog post offers some helpful steps to make a clean break feasible — they include communicating with colleagues about the sabbatical long in advance, managing expectations of those who rely on you, creating a backdoor for true emergencies, and then, right before going away, reminding everyone about the sabbatical once again.
This message is really long. I’d probably just hit delete and try to get in touch with someone else.
I also think you should give this email tactic a try – especially when you return from an extended break or vacation.
“Ideally, an OOO should include the basics,” says work and wellbeing psychologist Kate Sullivan. “The dates you'll be gone, an approximate timeline for when someone can expect to hear back from you upon your return, and how any urgent requests will be handled in your absence.”
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There’s a term that we like to use around here called “snowbirds,” which is used to describe those who once resided in the northern part of the U.S., only to flee to warmer parts of the country during the winter.
Because of this, typical out-of-office replies will often split the difference between our hopes and fears and say something like: “I’m out of the office and can be reached but if you need assistance right away, please contact x person.”
For all pressing matters, please contact [Contact Name] at [contact email] for assistance.
In this post, I’ll share what makes a good voicemail greeting — and the best voicemail greeting scripts you can use.
If there is an emergency, please email [email protected] and someone will contact you as soon as possible.
I have a deep paranoia about out of office messages ever since a previous (bad) job. Every year I worked on a huge project that took nine months, and three separate weeks (or more) of that involved correcting, editing, and reviewing a dense 300 page document.
If you have a corporate email account at work, the chances are you'll also have some kind of setting that enables you to tell people when you're on holiday or out on the office on business. But what if you don't? Or just want to set up an email auto reply on your Mac at home?
I wonder if anyone ever calculated how much time was wasted producing those messages.