When one of my colleagues is out of the office, he doesn’t mess around. In fact, he’s turned his auto-responses into a running series of commentary from fictional cartoon character Troy McClure.
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.
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Agreed. Every time you are in a meeting is overkill. For some people they are never not in meetings.
Yes, mine (for external e-mails) typically says somethingalong the lines of “I’m out of the office until [date/time] and messages to this address are not monitored in my absence. I will respond as soon as possible on my return. If your message is urgent, please re-send to my assistant [email address] or telephone [assistant’s number]” Internal it will usually just say “I’m out until [date/time] pass any urgent enquiries to [co-workers] ” although my assistant and a couple of others have my home number and personal e-mail so can get hold of me in a genuine emergency, and I will sometimes speak to them in advance if I’m willing to lower the bar on what amounts to an emergency, but I would not expect any of my employees to do that !
My department still doesn’t allow us to send OOO auto-replies to external recipients because of one incident years ago (a customer tried to contact a sales rep about an urgent order, got the rep’s auto-reply, and in their ensuing panic, somehow got escalated all the way up to the company president). Any external emails we get are auto-forwarded to a centralized mailbox and (ostensibly) handled by another rep while we are out. It bothers me to know that my external contacts won’t get a reponse from me while I’m out and may think I’m just ignoring them.
If you’re reading this in your inbox, you can find a shareable version online here. You can follow me on Twitter here, and Instagram here. Feel free to comment below — and you can always reach me at [email protected].
Dear Customer, Our office will be closed from [date] until [date] and close again for December 31 and January 1 to welcome the New Year. We wish you the warmest holiday. Regards. [Company name] ——. Dear Customer, Please note that on [day], [date], is [holiday name]. The store will be closed all day and will open again at [time] on [Day].
There were a lot of bilingual staff at my last job, and they always did their out of office messages in both languages. But who knows, maybe the Welsh translator was in a rush and forgot. An agency that handles government translations like road signs might be expected have such rules. On the other hand, never underestimate the boneheadedness of the monolinguals. Especially English ones.
Not exactly a neutral audience, though. A number of people following the account, if not most, will be following because they share the same sense of humor. Likewise people @ed by friends.
Wishing you all of the Hope, Wonder, and Joy that the Season can bring!Warmest wishes of the Season from our family to yours.Let us cherish family and friends this Holiday Season.Wishing you a season filled with warm moments and cherished memories. Specify the duration of leave and name of the colleague who will handle your work responsibilities in your absence. Furnish contact details for any urgent requirement and mention your date of joining back work.
Oh my gosh, yes! This also drives me crazy. The game of emailing 15 people because they are all out and pointing to each other as their back up. Infuriating.
I’ve honestly considered changing my OOO message/voicemail to “You’ve reached Lisa. I’m overwhelmed right now, so I’ll get back to you eventually.”
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As a part time person, I now put an OOO on my non-work days since I was getting snarky comments about slow response times. (People don’t realize I’m part time and my position is not suited at all to it.) Dude, I didn’t respond because I don’t get paid to work on Fridays.
Thank you for your message. I’m on sick leave and will get back to you as soon as I return to the office.
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Set a minimum delay for auto-responses. For example, if you set a minimum delay of 1, the eDesk will send the OOO template 1 minute after receiving the customer’s message. If you don’t set a minimum delay, eDesk will auto-respond immediately upon receipt of a message.