I wish I’d copied it, but once a co-worker in sales had an out of office that was long and rambling and talked about how she and her family were “going to visit Mickey.” I didn’t know what to make of it, especially since it could go to prospective clients.
Whether you’re off sick, away on training or somewhere blissfully sunny, you’ll need to set-up your ‘Out of Office’ auto-reply. Most people tend to go with the boring and basic formula of apologies and redirection to someone else who might be able to help. We’ve scoured the internet and gathered 10 of our favourite responses. After reading these, you might rethink your own!
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We have an office with a phone number and 4 people that work in it to specifically answer these inquiries.
“Happy Holidays” is typically used when you aren't really sure what holiday someone celebrates. In that instance you are replacing Christmas or Hanakkuh with the word Holiday making it a proper noun, which means it should be capitalized.
Anything worded like Option 1 would never fly at my workplace, exactly because of this. I have colleagues who complain to upper management if their non-urgent tech support questions (that a whole troubleshooting website already answers) don’t get an answer from me or my boss within half a day. And oh, did I mention our job is not actually tech support?
I’d just stick with “I will be OOO without access to phone or email from XX/YY to XX/YY, returning on XX/YY.” And then whatever directions for directing to your support/backup while you are out. I find that specifically saying ‘without access to phone or email’ sets a good expectation of non-response.
My pet peeve is OOOs for the afternoon/an appointment when the person who set it up is NOT good at responding to emails in a timely fashion. If someone usually requires multiple reminders and follow up emails for me to get a reply to an email after 2 weeks, I don’t really need a notification that their responses will be delayed an hour until they get back from the doctor. It makes me think “who are you responding to that quickly, and why can’t you reply to me that fast??”
My team had a standard Christmas OOO, because we had international clients who needed reminding that basically the entire country is OOO 25th-1st. The message itself was fairly boring, but the template had “xxxx” as a placeholder for your signoff, and every single year someone would say “I’m not sure I’m comfortable giving our clients that many kisses”
It’s kind of a ridiculous OOO anyway since by the time I get it from you, I have already sent my email.
This holiday out-of-office email is definitely on theme, if not a little passive aggressive. If you're getting emails during the holidays, why not treat everything you receive that season like the present it is, and send a thank you note?
Note: If you don't see Automatic Replies, use Rules and Alerts to set up your out-of-office message.
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I’m part time. I don’t use an out of office message, but I do have my hours in my signature, and sometimes include that information in the body of email. Many of the people I correspond with frequently need things turned around quickly – postings for public meetings need to go out so many days ahead of said meeting, and similar. They need to know when I’m available to get the work done!
Who doesn’t love a bit of decoding? Why use basic words, when a broad range of emojis can spell out exactly what you want to say, but in a much more interactive and fun way?
You can show just how thrilled you are about your vacation while still providing an apology (of sorts… not really). 8. “I am currently out of the office and probably chilling on the beach. Enjoy your work week.”
Website: https://infinititelecommunications.com.au/updating-your-phone-system-greetings-voicemail/
The above automated messages do not sound assuring as the time is not specified in terms of hours, days, or week. Here is a good example that businesses can follow to deliver effective customer service communication.