See, if it’s a long period of leave and there’s an alternate contact provided, this is just… the sensible thing that should happen?
Our senior leadership has admitted to not checking voicemails since we started working remotely…almost 15 months ago. It made me feel so good. I hate voicemail.
.
This is how my voicemails to my doctor’s office, my son’s doctor’s office, his daycare, etc. all go. Actually, the few times I leave voicemails beyond that, this is how they go.
Lead generation emails are the best when it comes to driving sales and promoting your content. Here’s an example template to inspire you:
Dear Customer, Thank you for your email, but our company is out of office, celebrating [HOLIDAY]. Unfortunately, it means we will not be able to send you any reply until [DATE]. We apologize for the delay but wish you a wonderful holiday season. Best regards.
Mine tend towards the latter for both internal and external and only get a little more expository if it’s a closedown period and I’m adding leave to one end of it, but that’s a simple “The organisation is shut between X and Y. For emergencies during this time please contact Team. I am on leave between Z and B and will not be accessing my email during this time. Please contact Email Address if your enquiry is urgent otherwise I will attend to your email as soon as is practicable upon my return.”
I had a manager who did exactly that for his paternity leave. I was floored, because I never thought it was an option. His attitude was that if it was important enough, the person would send it again.
There is never a time that isn’t right to share the love. Do well to share these messages with friends and loved ones.
But for employees at Daimler things are a little different. Email these people while they are on holiday and you will get a message like this:
10 best office closed for holiday messages. These messages are suitable for autoresponders, emails, text messages, and in-office posters. Thanksgiving Standard Message Our office will remain closed until the end of this week for Thanksgiving Holidays. We assure you that all your emails will be answered in the order they are received as soon as [..]
Apparently, people receiving such a notification rarely get angry. "The response is basically 99% positive, because everybody says, 'That's a real nice thing, I would love to have that too,'" Daimler spokesman Oliver Wihofszki told BBC Radio 4's Today programme. Holiday envy has been replaced by corporate email policy envy.
I should add that I actually WISH I got more exciting OOO messages and/or that I felt like I could be more exciting with mine!
I personally like it. Of course, the emails that I’ve seen still say what to do if the matter is urgent and needs to be handled now — but as a person who gets 100+ emails a day, whether I tell you I’m deleting all of them when I get back or not — if it is in the thousands of emails that might accumulate in the time I am off, I’m not going to see it or respond. Better that I tell you now that you are going to have to resend the email after I return (or get my backup to handle it now) than you sit around waiting for a response that is never going to come. It is actually pretty common in my industry for any absence two weeks or more.
This email comes from another one of my colleagues. The purpose of this email is to intercept messages during Thanksgiving, and the way in which it does so is, well, with thankfulness.
Just because I’m that person, I may have actually contacted you with a “Hope you’re having a great time!”
Leave some lights on for safety, but turn off any unnecessary ones before leaving. Test that all main doors are locked, as well as any server or file rooms holding sensitive equipment or information.
“This is MY NAME [from COMPANY] calling about REASON. Call me [by DAY/TIME] at (844) 387-6962 [pause, then repeat the number very slowly] that’s eight four four… three, eight, seven… six, nine, six, two.”