One of my co-workers, who was involved in a lot of committees and consequently got even more than the usual share of email around my place, put up an OOO message that said she was going to be “on pot for the week of the 15th.”
Thank you for your email. I am out of the office and will be back on Nov 10th. During this period, I will have limited access to my email.
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I’ve seen that from vendors. Sorry, you’re not the only shop in town and if you can’t be bothered I’m using my power of my dollar and noping away from your company.
Writing an effective out-of-office message is a key part of running any business. Although it may seem so simple, an incomplete or unclear out-of-office message will cause problems before you leave as well as when you return.
Start with a friendly greeting. Skip the "Greetings," "Salutations," "Dear sir/madam." These are far too stuffy and robotic. Instead, start off your response with a simple "Hi" or Hello.
It’s like telling your bank before you leave the country; overlooking it can cause communication issues.
If you're anything like I am, you probably fall into team two. That doesn't leave a lot of time to get creative. But if you plan ahead, you might be able to craft some hilarity.
I have a couple people that I work with though who set them for outside their normal work hours, like they automatically kick on at 4:30pm and off at 8am or whatever, and then there’s the one special snowflake who sets her out of office not only when she leaves for the day every day, but also when she takes her half hour lunch or her fifteen minute break, Jesus wept.
Email is one of the top tools for business communication. People expect swift responses to their requests. If this expectation will not be met because you are away from your desk, your client or colleague needs to know.
I know you probably don’t want to hear this, but I’m on holiday. I won’t be able to connect with you until [date]. However, there’s good news too: my colleague [Name] will help you with pleasure.
Visuals always work whether used in messages or elsewhere. In fact, communications that include images produce 650% higher engagement than text-only messages.
While creating auto responding emails it is vital to focus on the tone and language. It means:
Here are some suggestions for what you should always include in your auto-reply emails when you are out of the office:
As a matter of courtesy – and to give you the peace of mind needed to be present wherever you are going (either away from the office or on vacation) – you should send each of your clients a simple email to let them know you’ll be away. Below I’ve offered some sample text for to you use as a template. Feel free to make it a TextExpander snippet, Gmail canned response, or whatever. Just use it (or something like it). Please.
But to set a vacation mode on the iPhone, it is better to select manually. This will give you more control to change the mode at any time.
It doesn’t say you have to grovel to get what you need. It says you have to ask again when they are in the office to get what you need, which is perfectly reasonable.
Sample voicemail message for office or department: “Thank you for calling The University of Toledo’s (office/department). The University is closed for winter break. Please call back after New Year’s Day or visit our website at (website URL). Thank you and happy holidays.”