A. To best serve your customers, whether its students, alumni, consumers or other UToledo stakeholders, all department/office and individual voicemail and out-of-office email messages should let them know that UToledo is closed for winter break. Examples of messages you may want to use are below.
A. While The University of Toledo Medical Center and its operations must remain open for our patients and guests, yes – there will be a limited number of offices closed on HSC during winter break because they are academic, non-hospital or non-patient care areas. Leaders of those departments are responsible for ensuring their students, team members, customers, vendors and other stakeholders know in advance that they will be closed during winter break. Their email and voicemail messages also should inform customers of the specific closure dates.
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And yet regardless of your job description, the humble OOO can do much more besides simply telling people not to expect a prompt reply. Crafted subtly enough, it can even drum up business for you. While they wait for you to respond, perhaps they’d like to check out your new website or sign up for your monthly newsletter?
Keeping It Real. I am currently out of the office on vacation. I know I’m supposed to say that I’ll have limited access to email and won’t be able to respond until I return, but that’s not true.
When I worked at Nightmare Small Business(tm), a coworker went on maternity leave with (privately shared among the staff, but not with the owner) the intent to give her notice at the end rather than return. She left a very professional, concise and informative out of office message. The owner proceeded to log in to her email and change the message to include saccharine references to both the pregnancy/baby and how much she “missed” being away from clients and how excited she was to return soon.
For many roles, of course, the sort of OoO described wouldn’t work. But there are a lot of roles where people would survive just fine letting their requests sit for an extra week before forwarding again. And especially at smaller companies where there they might be pressed for coverage when people are out, I think it’s great to normalise that a job is basically ‘off-line’ for a week or two so that the employee can rest and recharge.
Changing it every evening is definitely too much, though. I would assume the vast majority of people sending business email understand the concept of working and non-working hours…
An out-of-office message is an automatic response to emails you receive that lets the sender know you’re not currently working.
In the time before your vacation, remind all of the co-workers on your team that you will be gone for the specific dates while also making sure to note your vacation on all internal company calendars. People are busy and can forget things, especially if those things are not happening regularly. You might have shared that you will be gone two months ago, but it’s something your colleagues may have forgotten. So, don’t neglect to remind everyone, because there might be some problems if that happens. Miscommunication is something that can be easily avoided, as in this specific case.
4.) Herzlich willkommen bei Mustermann Solutions . Wegen einer firmeninternen Veranstaltung ist heute unser Sekretariat nicht erreichbar.Sie können uns aber gerne eine Nachricht hinterlassen. Ab Montag stehen wir Ihnen wieder persönlich zur Verfügung. Vielen Dank für Ihr Verständnis.
I have no idea! He was pretty quirky, but in a harmless way. Like, he didn’t expect other people to spend that kind of time on their VM greetings, and he took our good-natured ribbing about his unusual habits in stride.
I once emailed a colleague in our main office and got an OOO reply that said just: “I am currently out of the office. Please press 0 to reach the operator for assistance”
Editor's note: This post was originally published in February 2018 and has been updated for comprehensiveness. Try This Effective Prospecting Voicemail Script [Tips Included] Sales | 12 min read
I don’t know what to say these days – I’m still working from home so “out of the office” doesn’t sound right any more, but ‘off work’ seems like too much? I’m probably way overthinking it but I’ve felt stuck every time I need to write one lately.
i am 100 percent in favor of using email signatures and out of office messages to be more blunt about how you want other people to use/respect your time. from this: politico.com/newsletters/we…
We are closed today for the [public holiday name]. Our office will re-open tomorrow at am.
You should use your out of office email whenever you’re going to be away from the office – whether it’s for a day, a week, or even longer.