17) I cannot handle your emails until I return on mm/dd/yyyy. Please be patient and your mail will be deleted in the order it was received.
This is the dream. If I could do this, I would! I hate voicemails (and the phone in general) so, so much!
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I’ve started going really, really simple on OOO messages – literally just “I’ll be out of the office until ___, please contact ___ for questions about ____”
Acknowledging the customer support messages with well-designed auto responders helps them to know what will be your next step for the request they have raised. They become sure that you as a business are looking into the issue and they will get the resolution soon.
Thanks for your message! I am brushing up on my social networking savvy and analytics knowledge at a digital media conference in Vancouver from May 1-6. I will have limited email access, so if you need immediate assistance, please reach out to our marketing assistant, Kennedy Tran, at [email protected] or 555-432-6100. In the meantime, if you need access to our media kit, you can find it here.
I worked at a public agency and would have different out-of-office messages for internal and external. I was chastised for having a “too informal” message- because the idiot talking to me didn’t realize me saying “I’ll be back next Tuesday for the big staff meeting” (or whatever) was just for co-workers and not the public. I told them but of course it didn’t matter. So from then on I always made sure to start my internal OOOs- “Hello Company X comrade…. blah.” So it was clear which was which. I am not able to respond to your email promptly because my husband died. I will not be accepting zoom invitations. Please do not respond by suggesting future alternative dates. I don’t know when I will be able to speak without crying.
I'm not actually at the North Pole, but I am preoccupied with wrapping presents, drinking hot chocolate, and listening to festive music. Therefore, I won’t respond to your email until [date]. Thank you for your patience, and I hope you have a wonderful holiday.
Thanks for calling [Company Name].For more information about our products, press 1. If you have troubleshooting questions, press 2. For billing questions, press 3. For a Dial by Name directory, press 4. For our regular business hours, press 5. If you know your party’s extension, please dial it now. For all other inquiries, please stay on the line, and a representative will be happy to assist you. 5. Offering the Operator First
The best voicemail greeting I’ve ever encountered went like this: “If you’re hearing this message, please hang up and send me a text. I haven’t checked my voicemail since 2010.” And true to form, the mailbox was full and not accepting messages at that time. I appreciated her honesty!
I have been out the office working from home for more than a year now. After a few weeks of remotely checking VM (and sometimes forgetting for days) I simply changed my phone setting so you cannot leave a message. I have not regretted since. On very few occasions people have clicked 0 and gone to reception. Reception can IM me and ill call or email the person back if I want or they can give them my email. Everyone else either emails me or if they already have it call my cell. Internal people never call my phone they use IM or video chat. No one internally has had an issue with this and this eliminates the whole hey call me back to spend 30 minutes talking about something that I could have answered in 2 minutes in an email.
Here’s a peek at some great vacation samples of auto-reply messages, which are quick and to the point.
Apparently it’s a thing where people say in their out of office that they do not intend to read any emails that came in when they were out and your email will be deleted. If you still need assistance you need to resend your email after the person’s return date. While I get it, I’ve been in those positions where you get over 100 emails a day and if you are going to be out and unplugged for a week or more, trying to wade through all the junk and find the stuff that actually needs your attention, I do find this…rude? I don’t know the word I would use, but I have a negative reaction to it.
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Sorry I missed you. I’ll be out of the office and slow to respond until after the break. While I have you, though, help settle an argument among my colleagues and me: Die Hard 1: The Office Christmas Party Gone Wrong. Die Hard 2: Airport Conspiracy. Die Hard 3: Samuel L. Jackson. Enough said. Die Hard 4: Cyberthreat. Die Hard 5: You should probably not pick this one. Impossible! It’s like choosing a favorite child!
Not an OOO issue but the comment about PTSD from OldJob reminded me of this. I am a recreational sailor who often made longer offshore trips as my vacation. OldBoss INSISTED that we provide contact instructions. Mine was some variant of “Dial O and ask for the Marine Operator. Give them [name of boat], [call sign] and [approximate location by date] along with your name and credit card number. We will be monitoring Channel 16 at these times…..” Never got a call. Word spread and there was a sudden epidemic of sailing vacations in my office!
Each time McClure makes an appearance in these out-of-office messages, he “speaks” on behalf of my colleague and alludes to the previous auto-responses in which he starred. It’s a mild form of self-deprecating humor — as if to say, “I know, I’m out of the office again” — made only funnier by the made-up teaser title included in the last line.
I had a boss who was mad if I put his full name on my OOO. I was his deputy. He said people should know how to contact him if I just use his first name. He thought the public would get his info (public-facing office but we didn’t correspond with the public at our level, of course). It made me feel very very silly to comply.