Happy holidays! I am currently getting into the holiday spirit, and so is the rest of the office. I'll be sure to respond to your email when I return to work on Dec. 28, 2020. Thank you for your patience, and I hope you and your loved ones have a joyous holiday. All the best, Lennox Haven Marketing Director
Article ID: 513 | Rating: 5/5 from 1 votes | Last Updated: Wed, Dec 12, 2018 at 12:51 PM
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A former coworker used to always include a kitten picture when she submitted invoices.
Once they realize that your office is currently closed, the most important piece of information they probably want to know is your standard business hours. While this information can be tucked behind a phone menu option, it's best to state it upfront in your after hours recording.
I’ve started using one that’s short/sweet but still has a little bit of JAZZ. I can’t take credit for it – I saw it on Twitter a few years ago. It’s been received well both inside and outside of my organization. Here it is. If it speaks to you, please yoink it and use it as you wish:
Basics Emailing Basics E-mail Responses E-mail Requests E-mail Closings Email Examples The Customers Customer Emails Customer Phone Calls Sales Phone Calls Sales & Marketing Emails Business Marketing The Workplace People Experience People Management HR E-mails Operations Online Meetings Business Productivity Workplace Emails Business Phone Calls Job Search Emails Freelancing Sales & Marketing Sales & Marketing Emails Email Marketing Business Blogging Sales Phone Calls Social Network Messages Social Marketing Branding
Confirm any expected deliveries will not be left at your door or unattended. Reschedule if necessary.
Feel free to share some examples of auto-reply messages that you have used or such that you’ve received. Include those in the comments below, and we can have a chat.
Thank you for your email. Your message is important to (Us/Me) and (I/We) will respond as soon as possible.
“I’m not in the office. I’m spending time with my children and that’s far more important than absolutely anything you could be after”
Website: https://www.ringcentral.com/us/en/blog/tuesday-tip-set-up-a-custom-holiday-announcement/
For comparison my current (not great) boss sent an out of office recently detailing how he would be out because he was on his personal sail boat all day, sailing from vacation destination X back to our port city. At length. In a pandemic. When we all had our wages frozen at the start of the crisis.
My OOO is almost always “I’m out of the office and will be returning on x date.” My email sig has instructions along the lines of “for questions on x, email this list” for a couple of the more common areas people would contact me about that might need an urgent reply (as the lists go to more than just me, obviously), but most people have finally figured out to contact those lists to start with, anyway. If I were in the middle of a project or something that needed to be moved along in my absence, the project teams usually know when we’re out, but I’d put a back up in that case, if needed, but generally there’s not much to be gained by a longer OOO from me.
I’ll be back in front of my computer on [date] and will respond to your message then. If you require immediate assistance, please feel free to send an email to [Contact Name] at [contact email] so that they can help you out.
Oh shoot. You need something and I’m unavailable today. Here’s the good news: you have options.
1) Communicate when a person will be back, or if they are out for an indeterminate period of time, tell me who I should be contacting instead 2) Communicate what I should expect. (For example, when I do my monthly reports, I have an out of office message that says that I’ll be slow to respond. I *will* actually check my email at least a couple of times, but I generally won’t respond to anything non-urgent.) 3) If the person is in a job that handles urgent requests, list who I need to contact instead if it can’t wait until they get back.
Eh, figuratively. It’s like saying I’ve gone to lunch even though I’m still right here eating at my desk–the point is that I’m unavailable to do any work.