I like funny OOO – but I am a bad offender regarding these and may slightly overshare. I recently had to be in and out for eye surgery and this was mine:
According to American Express, “Six in ten customers feel that companies meet their service expectations”. Customers look for faster resolution and rely on the expectations that businesses set with queue time for evaluating their service quality.
.
I am the LW! It’s interesting, having Alison type out the OOO reply comes across less condescending than how it did in video. I’m sure it works for their office but it also says a lot, potentially, about their culture that she’d need to write something out like that in the first place! Usually “I’m OOO from X to X, please contact X for (reason)” should suffice.
I came across a woman’s Maternity Leave OOO message which said “All emails will be deleted upon my return. If it still urgent after (return date), send another message.”
An out-of-office auto-reply serves to inform people that you aren’t available to respond to their emails. These are mainly used during the holidays.
You’ve been busy planning out your tasks, tying up loose ends, and working ahead to ensure you can actually disconnect, recharge, and relax over your holiday break.
Just because you are away, you still have the chance to keep the business going. Let your email work for you, by offering different things that will ultimately increase the chance to attract new customers. Your marketing team will be so grateful!
Eh, my team’s instruction to put them up if they’re going to be away from email/voicemail for more than an hour (standard lunch break). I have a ton of staff, and we’re in a business where a high degree of responsiveness, especially during the business day, is expected and few of my staff have mobile email. We’re also a larger organization with mixed project teams, and not everyone knows who’s PT/FT or on nonstandard hours.
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.
How long you’re out of the office forWho to contact while you’re awayYour return date
Confirm your greeting is set for each day you are closed to play the “holiday” or “closed” greeting. Check your on-call option is working properly, when applicable.
That’s also annoying because if it’s not someone I interact with regularly I will wonder if it’s been left on by accident.
Log In Social Media Media Relations Crisis Marketing Writing & Editing COVID-19 EVENTS Awards More Contact UsFrequently Asked QuestionsSite MapStore Facebook Twitter LinkedIn How to write a memorable out-of-office reply for the holidays
My dad will call and leave — legit — a 5 minute voice mail where he will tell me that he has something to tell me, that it is really funny, that he can’t leave it as a voicemail because I won’t get it, or maybe I won’t find it funny, that’s fine, I don’t have to call him back, it was stupid anyway, it probably isn’t funny….. He goes through all of the stages of passive aggressive behavior before ending with “Anyway, call me back.”
We use cookies to ensure you get the best experience on our site. More details. Got it Features Pricing Help Request a Demo Log In Sign Up Features Pricing Help Request a Demo Log In Sign Up Blog Tips & Tricks 5 Out of Office Email Samples You Can Use Reading Time: 3 minutes
COVID-19 Floating Holidays — Three new COVID-19 floating holidays have been granted to all full-time staff members who are eligible for floating holidays and who are employed as of the effective date of November 23, 2020 and all part-time exempt and non-exempt benefits eligible staff employed as of the same date. These additional days are available for use from November 23, 2020 through December 31, 2021.
How about a little retro concrete poetry – you know, where you arrange your words on the screen to form an image of a palm tree or a pina colada?