Please accept our apology for the inconvenience this may cause. We are thankful for your understanding.
And while we all have grace for friends and family who seem to take forever to get back to our messages, customers generally expect this degree of promptness when they text a business.
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I once left a kind of breezy, fun out of office message for “people inside my organization” that said the literal truth: “I am out of office this week at a mountain resort where I have paid many hundreds of dollars for someone to take my electronics away from me. I’ll get back to you Monday,” and a very normal and professional OOO for “people outside my organization.” Needless to say I returned to a message from a senior (but not, I stress, my boss or even on my team) colleague calling me out on it. People surely can make things their business.
I have a colleague who usually does different ones for internal and external: internal will be “I’m currently in the pouring rain in a tent in the Cotswolds. I get back (hopefully without trenchfoot!) on Monday Date. Whilst I’m getting soggy please contact Email Address.” and external is just “I’m on annual leave between X and Y and will not be accessing my email. Please contact Email Address if you need assistance during this time.” We all really like their internal ones.
5. Internal out of office reply template. An internal reply can use slightly more informal language but should not be too casual. Remember that any employee, including management, will be able to see this auto response if they email you.
One year my organization mistakenly left me off the phone directory. I made no attempt to correct that. The only people who could call me we’re those who knew my number; everyone else had to use email.
Hi, I’m Troy McClure. You might remember me from such out-of-office messages as Avenge My Death if I Don’t Return from DMEXCO and Bye Now, I’m on an Absurdly Long Cycling Trip.
I got the original voice mail on my landline when it became available for home use. It replaced the old voicemail recorder you could buy.
does this work when you turn your phone off entirely? like if i set up an auto-reply to texts and then turn my phone off, will people get that response? i am about to travel internationally & would love to have this set up for when i’m off the grid & my phone is off.
Here’s one example out in the world, which jumpstarted me thinking about this topic:
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:
An out of office message could become an opportunity to connect with your client on a more personal level. Consider sharing something about yourself that they might not have known about while working with you.
If you want to add a humorous spin to your vacation responder email, here’s a great idea:
“some things are MORE important than work” definitely comes off as aggressive to me. “How DARE you email me when I’m doing something MORE IMPORTANT, and for that matter why aren’t YOU spending time with YOUR family?!”
The best holiday messages are short, cheerful and specific. Try to include the person’s name, as well as a memory from the holiday season or year.
If you work in an industry (like PR, for example) where clients expect a response in a matter of moments or hours, you may need to set an out-of-office message if you’re absent for an afternoon. If you’re not sure whether you should set one, ask your boss or a coworker or consult your employee handbook.
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.