Leaving an email without a responder can appear unprofessional, lose potential business and, worst of all, make you look like Scrooge!
Between now and then, I recommend escaping the summer heat with a delicious Aviation & Tonic. Here’s my recipe:
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Yeah this sort of chain is why we got an out of office address for each department. It went to the managers who were never all off at the same time.
Of course, managing a minute and a half response time isn’t so easily accomplished when you’re out of office, receiving hundreds of texts each hour, or shifting your attention to a different project.
I go with “offline” or “away” (away…to my couch). I like closing the door, though!
Honest communication, even in the form of an email auto reply, is a roadmap. It helps people understand how best to help you and, in turn, allows them to better help themselves. Straightforward expectation setting is a way to be respectful of your coworkers’ time and pressures, but most importantly, it’s a way to be respectful of and guard your time. Even if you don’t feel an intense need to be more open in your workplace correspondence, consider modeling the behavior for others who work with you or, especially, those who work for you. It’s a small change in behavior but it’s a meaningful one. And this summer is the perfect time to start.
Some people keep theirs quite corporate and formal, adopting a to-the-point notification, i.e.:
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I’ll be back at my desk on [date] and will respond to your message immediately. In case you need urgent assistance, please forward an email to [contact name] at [contact email] so that Santa’s little helpers at our shop may look into it.
Of course I’ll still be glad to hear from you – try me at this email: [insert email].
I am currently out of the office and will be back to work on (insert date). If something urgent comes up, you can let me know by emailing me with the word “URGENT” in your email title and I’ll get back to you as soon as I can.
There was a lot of pushback on this, discussion about how big a risk was that really anyway, people saying that John could word his out of office in such a way that people didn’t have to know he was actually away, and if something really was an emergency people would like to know that they have the opportunity to “direct queries to Sam or Dean” so they could be actioned, or make the judgement call that something could wait for John to return.
2. Include a GIF to make your auto-response more fun. Everyone can appreciate the excitement of pushing work aside to go on vacation. Bring this to life by linking to a GIF in your vacation responder message. Here’s an example out of office reply: Shoot, you just missed me.
Just imagine the ease your customers feel when they receive a warm and friendly automated message that sounds human. Hence when you craft autoresponders, keeping your brand’s voice and style is very important to give a human touch.
First, here’s the out-of-message for people who don’t like watching video (although the person in the video is funny and really brings the message to life):
I, for one, tend to forget to set my automated out-of-office (OOO) email responder and scramble to do it before the plane takes off 🙈 It’s important to inform your customers and business associates (and remind your colleagues!) that you’re away, especially if they’re expecting a prompt response.