Once I come back on *date*, I will get back to you. Maybe I can even tell you about my adventures.
While the above is almost certainly a dramatisation, getting your out-of-office message right over the holiday period is arguably as important as all other facets of business. Cashflow? Investments? Who needs ’em when you’ve got an auto-response that’ll make people chortle!
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It’s summer, and you’re probably gearing up to take some time off work – including tying up loose ends, putting some final touches on projects, and figuring out the process of delegating. So many factors go into making sure you can actually disconnect, relax, and recharge over your planned vacation.
Ha reminds me of an admin here once who would leave like 10 bullet points on who to contact for what. We got a kick out of the point that was “for catering emergencies…contact…”.
Setting your out of office may be different depending on the email provider you use. But whether you’re on Outlook, Gmail, or another platform, it should be a relatively straightforward process.
But you don’t need to write an instruction guide for people as though they’re incapable of solving their own problems without you.
Visuals always work whether used in messages or elsewhere. In fact, communications that include images produce 650% higher engagement than text-only messages.
2.) Herzlich willkommen bei Mustermann GmbH. Aufgrund unseres Betriebsurlaubes sind unsere Servicemitarbeiter erst wieder ab Montag, den 04.07.2016 für Sie erreichbar. Der Versand der Bestellungen wird ab dem 11.01.2016 wieder starten. Gerne können Sie uns aber in der Zwischenzeit Ihr Anliegen per Email an [email protected] oder über unser Kontaktformular zukommen lassen. Vielen Dank!
One of my favorite OOO messages I ever received was from a customer who was a barrister or soliciter (not sure the right term for an English lawyer). It said he would be unavailable because he is “on trial.”
Same. There are a few people that are regularly in charge of things I need from them, but are part time. The vast majority of our office is full time. I have no idea when they’ll get back to me, or if I should email someone else. If I saw an OOO message every time they were gonna be gone Th-Fri, I would learn their schedule faster, and hopefully have the most up to date info about “oh, they changed their schedule due to Memorial Day, I can email them and get a response quicker this week” or whatever the issue is.
To help you write yours, here’s everything you need to know, along with a few out of office templates for you to choose from:
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*using a professional email marketing solution you can personalize your emails by using your customers’ first name as well as other personalized tokens containing info you have about your customers
IDK, I try to change my OOO if I’m out for a day. It might not be completely necessary, but I’d rather inform people, and it doesn’t happen often enough to be annoying for me.
Start with a friendly greeting. Skip the "Greetings," "Salutations," "Dear sir/madam." These are far too stuffy and robotic. Instead, start off your response with a simple "Hi" or Hello.
This might seem obvious, but make sure you clearly state and restate the dates you’ll be out of the office. Even if you put the dates in your subject line, you should also repeat them in the message body. It’s hard to over-communicate here. State exactly when you’ll be back, and whether or not you’ll be responding to calls and emails while you’re out. If you’re on the road but are responding to messages, let everyone know if you’ll be unavailable for an extended period (while on a flight, for example), if you’ll be in a different time zone, and in general, that they should expect a delay in response time. All in all, set realistic expectations and strive to be as specific as possible.
Each time McClure makes an appearance in these out-of-office messages, he "speaks" on behalf of my colleague and alludes to the previous auto-responses in which he starred. It's a mild form of self-deprecating humor — as if to say, "I know, I'm out of the office again" — made only funnier by the made-up teaser title included in the last line.