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2.( مرحبا بكم في .John Doe نظرا لكون شركتنا في عطلة، فإن خدمة عملائنا ستكون متاحة لكم مرة أخرى ابتداءا من يوم الاثنين 2016/07/04. سيبدأ شحن الطلبات من جديد يوم 2016/11/01. وخلال هذا الوقت انتم مدعوون لإرسال طلباتكم إلى [email protected] عبر البريد الإلكتروني أو من خلال استمارة الاتصال. شكرا لكم!
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Sounds like it’s clear in your mind what you want to happen, but I’ve heard plenty of people say, “Of course you took it somewhere else, that’s what I told you to do, and now I have two action-less emails to trash rather than one.”
Not only did Kopelman manage to turn his out-of-office message into an epic poem of sorts, but also, he actually went through the trouble of creating a delightfully snarky, vacation-specific email address for his recipients.
The dialogue “You may remember me from..” by Troy McClure is uncannily iconic for all Simpsons fans. It has also evolved into an autoresponder saga. By the time the reader realizes that they are going to wait a while, they would have already had the fun of reading this hilarious convo. Have a look at this funny out of office reply and see if your associates would love to hear it:
When I’m out for a day or longer, I like to schedule my out of office message to run all the way up until the start time of my day when I return, since we have people who start emailing three hours or earlier before I even get to my desk. If it’s a Monday and I’ve been out for two weeks and they’re emailing me at 6:30am my time, I want people to know that I’ve been out and will be wading through my inbox and might not answer them right away at 10:01 their time like I typically would.
Because I used to get phone calls that defaulted to, “I need the director”, I had my out of office mail set to:
Our Public Service Announcement: Each year, Americans leave 700 million DAYS of paid time off on the table. Stop and think about how many great out of office reply opportunities are missed because of this!
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!
The best voicemail greeting I’ve ever encountered went like this: “If you’re hearing this message, please hang up and send me a text. I haven’t checked my voicemail since 2010.” And true to form, the mailbox was full and not accepting messages at that time. I appreciated her honesty!
That sounds like she’s using an auto-responder, not an Out of Office. The primary difference, as far as I can tell, is that an auto-response will respond to every email, whereas the OOO message will only reply once per sender when it’s turned on. (Turning it off and then back on resets it)
Thankfully, with a simple out of office message taking a day off doesn’t mean that your communication with clients has to stop.
And it's worth pointing out—in case, like me, you missed it because you were awed by her approach to her parental OOO—the response is completely in sync with the New York Times' culture/brand. (You can find her OOO with live links here.)
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.
Both of these tools are designed to help you go from Email Explorer to Email Extractor – and get you from guessing to going when it comes to dealing with your email inbox.
Hi, Happy holidays! I am currently out of the office, with no email access. I’ll be returning on [date] and will get back to you as soon as I can. Happy holidays!
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