I’ve named the conference I was attending a couple of times in my out of office. That particular conference is a big enough deal in my field that some of the people emailing me were probably also in attendance, which made it worth specifying, in addition to setting expectations about email response times and overall availability.
I’ve seen those before (also for maternity or for people who were taking extended leave). I really appreciate it, personally — it basically lets the sender know that the ball IS still in their court, which I don’t see as inherently offensive or attitudy.
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REVE Chat offers the template to set up personalized queue messages and exact wait to manage their customer expectations. Under the customization option from the dashboard, you can manage customer conversations by providing estimated time and message.
In 2013, researcher danah boyd wrote a LinkedIn blog post advocating for the nuclear option which was framed in the piece as an “email sabbatical.” Coming back to an empty inbox after a vacation is should be a break from the insanity, not a procrastination of it,” boyd wrote of the decision to send everything to the trash.
We do it every time we go on vacation or take a sick day. We put up an out-of-office (OOO) message with the date of our return, a colleague’s contact information for urgent needs, and maybe even some details about the destination of our long-awaited vacation.
If your request is urgent, there’s no use sitting idly in my inbox. So, please send your request to [contact name] at [contact email].
When you share transparent business information and provide alternative ways when the relevant channel is not available, it delivers a delightful service experience.
Editor's Note: This was originally posted in July 2018 and updated and republished on the date posted in the article. Enjoy!
You may not think it, but an auto-attendant is an important part of your business. It is typically the first point of contact with your customers, as they will call your main number with sales inquiries, troubleshooting questions, etc.
I say this as someone who used to have a chronic problem keeping up with my personal voicemails. But I got voicemail transcription set up so I can read them now, because just ignoring important phone calls has consequences. I can’t imagine trying to just duck them in a professional job where I had a phone number, and therefore an expectation that people can call me!
We’ve certainly come a long way since the honeymoon days of You’ve Got Mail, the 1998 Meg Ryan romcom in which each new electronic missive set Tom Hanks’ heart fluttering (and vice versa). These days, in tech circles, you’ll hear tales of folk who’ve set their email servers up to automatically delete unread emails after a week – before going on holiday for a full fortnight. Others have reduced the OOO to a single word in the subject line: “Nope.”
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Found it! (Reddit’s own search functionality is garbage, but it’s so easy to google for reddit posts, thankfully)
I’m so glad not to have to work at [insert company] any more that I am literally high on life.
I cancelled it at the end of the trial period and they asked me why so they could improve their services. I surprised myself by bursting out, “messages, messages, messages! I cannot take it anymore!
It’s possible I might quote from some responses to this in an upcoming column, so please note if you don’t want me to do that with yours!