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!
Thank you for your note. I’m currently out of the office, returning on [date]. I’ll respond to your message then.
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I guess my first instinct might be thinking it’s rude but having seen it a few times I do get it. It really makes sense for people who get dozens or hundreds of emails a day and are gone for extended periods of time. It’s more courteous to be up front about it than silently delete like some people said they do (though I get they maybe just didn’t realize they’d need to do that).
But you can do better than that. Surprisingly, you can get so much more out of such a simple letter. A good out-of-office can serve as a tool to generate leads, promote content, and help you stand out by showing off some creativity.
This is the perfect way to reduce the sheer email volume that you’ll return to, with a little anarchy involved…
I typically say “thanks for your message, I’m out until blah date, with periodic access to email” or no access depending. I list contacts who are willing to pitch in if necessary, and list the day AFTER my return that I’ll be able to address messages.
You can configure automated reply messages to encourage customers to submit their queries.
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You can clarify that there’s a possibility that you’ll see the email before the return date, but you can’t guarantee it.
I am out of the office from January 14 to 20, with only limited access to my emails and voicemail. Please be informed that this mail hasn’t been forwarded. I’ll come back to you as soon as possible.
If you scroll down, towards the bottom you'll find a section called Vacation Responder. There, tick Vacation Responder On and fill in the dates for when you want any received emails to be replied to with the automatic response.
Once I got an auto reply from a stakeholder on a project that said something to the effect of “Thanks for contacting me. Due to the large volume of email I receive, I don’t read them all. If I haven’t responded within 3 business days, please try again.”
Sometimes people will think it’s okay to ask a quick question while you’re out of the office. Avoid the interruption by including at least one person who can answer questions in your absence.
There’s nothing awful or offensive about this message, but it’s also not very good. Yes, it provides the courtesy of letting the sender nominally know that you’re going to be slower than usual to respond. That’s nice. The problem is in this bit: “may be slow to respond to email.” Another popular variation: “might be slower than usual to respond.”
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.
I’m on a couple of mandatory company-wide email lists. None of these ever have pertinent information, but they’re required.
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.