Under the customization option, you can configure the pre-chat form to create personalized offline messages. You can clearly mention the business hours and ask customers to fill up the form with the relevant sales or support query. Inform them that your support representative will be connecting with them at the earliest to sort out the issue.
I say “I am out of the office without access to email” to avoid the expectation that I’ll check on vacation. With a contact for anything urgent given.
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I, for one, tend to forget to set my automated out-of-office (OOO) email responder and scramble to do it before the plane takes off 🙈 It’s important to inform your customers and business associates (and remind your colleagues!) that you’re away, especially if they’re expecting a prompt response.
7.) Bem-vindo ao escritório de advocacia John Doe. Desculpe, no momento não podemos atender a sua chamada, pois você está ligando durante nosso feriado anual. Você pode nos enviar um e-mail em para info @ Lawoffice-john doe.de – que entraremos em contato o mais rápido possível quando retornarmos. Em casos urgentes, entre em contato com o nosso representante de escritório. Eles podem ser encontrados em nosso site www.law office-john doe.de. Muito obrigado pela sua ligação - Adeus.
I work in fundraising for after the standard Im out until X, contact Y in the meantime, I also list ways people can give, since thats my job.
Going beyond being formal and functional with your messages, you can also add a note of festive mood to your email if you feel like being creative. To this purpose, you can adopt a lighter tone, while referencing the holiday in question.
Some of my coworkers have started putting “Thank you for your email” at the beginning of their out of office replies. Management loves it, but I think it’s too ingratiating and I cringe when I read it. These are junior-level staffers, so maybe it makes sense in that context? Anyway, I refuse to put that in my out of office messages.
I want to answer every question you could possibly have in my out of office message, because otherwise you’re going to text my personal number and disturb whatever I am out of the office for. NOPE.
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.
Agreed, the whole quirky-cute thibg annoys me, but human drives me up the wall. I cant articulate what about it grates me.
3. Suggest Reading the Documentation. This is the office closed for holiday template that our support team uses. If you have an extensive documentation published on your site, you can recommend users to read the documentation while you get back to your users.
Yes, with all the holiday planning of feasts and gifts and decorations, there is also the important task of drafting your holiday auto-responder text. You need to let your colleagues and clients know that you’ll be away from your desk celebrating the spirit of the season (and not reading their emails!).
Yes, qualifiers can be helpful. Limited vs no email access, out of the office versus working off site, regular out of the office versus extended leave, etc.
You don’t have to disclose the specific reason for your absence in your out-of-office message. You can simply say “I’m on leave” or “I’m currently out of the office.” This goes for any reason you’re OOO.
Seconded, with one exception: I got one once from a distant coworker which said “I have broken my arm in a kitten-related fall and will be out for (…)”. Everyone else uses boilerplate language so that one definitely stood out, but I thought it was the right level of mildly amusing.
Now that you know what you should and shouldn’t include, how do you go about crafting the perfect out-of-office vacation message?
Come Christmas time, there’s nothing quite like tidying up your desk, shamefully closing your 50 Chrome tabs, and switching on your out-of-office responder for the holidays.