This entails informing your loyal customers about the holiday closure of your business in a clear, informative and (optionally) festive manner. Knowing that holidays can be a busy time of the year, we provide you with several pre-drafted email templates that you can use for announcing the holiday closure for your business.
Editor's Note: This was originally posted in July 2018 and updated and republished on the date posted in the article. Enjoy!
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That’s what always got me! There always seemed to be an air of preemptive defensiveness? I’m definitely reading a lot into it based on other ways this person showed up in the workplace and how they treated others. Also I completely agree that some things are more important than work (!), but there was something about the way these were phrased that made me feel like ……… okay?? I know??? It just felt … performative.
Though you were ending with a “for everything else, there’s Mastercard” for a moment!
As long as you’ve covered the basics—dates of your absence and who to contact in your absence—you should be good to go.
It’s Christmas, what are you doing emailing me? I’m extremely busy watching Home Alone, Die Hard, and the 1994 Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtle Christmas Special on repeat until the new year. I might stop for food and toilet breaks, I also might now. Regardless of my general health and hygiene over the silly season, I’ll be back in office on January 2nd. Catch ya then, don’t forget to buy a pepperoni pizza for Splinter. (Source: Futureofworking.com)
Oh man, I mostly loved my European colleagues, but the “we were gone for a month, why haven’t you done more?” made me so, so stabby. That or the whole “hey, you really need to work harder to get this done by June 25th because none of us are going to be around to take care of our part by July 1.” So, I’m working 65 hour weeks for a month so you don’t have to spend 8 hours of your vacation working? Sounds fair.
The attendant menu for your main contact number may be the first form of contact that a customer has with your business. Make sure your greeting is clearly articulated. Provide an option to speak with an operator if the caller has a question that is not addressed by the menu options.
When you’re trying to contact someone on a matter of importance (or even urgency) on one side of the equation and you find out via an autoresponder that they are away for vacation, it can be incredibly frustrating unless they’ve done the front-end work beforehand. (I’m speaking from personal – and recent – experience here. And worse, there was no auto-responder set up. I had to use the – gasp! – telephone to find out what was going on.)
Happy holidays! [Your Name] Whether you prefer to stick with something simple or have a little fun with your holiday out-of-office message, it’s important that you always make sure to at least include the basics: your return date and an alternative contact people can reach out to …
After all, your goal is always to keep your business associates happy. For that reason, you should have a backup co-worker who will cover some of your work while you are not available. Not only is this the professional way to go, but it will also leave your customer satisfied with the company’s service.
If you need super-urgent assistance, you are more than welcome to parachute onto the island and meet me on the beach! If that isn’t possible, please contact Jane Smith at [email protected] or 971-314-6323.
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.
I appreciate your message. I am out of the office currently with no office email access. However, return on the following [date-of-return].
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.
Lastly, don’t forget to set your out-of-office greeting for your office and mobile phones while you’re out.
The following phrases will be very useful when you’re preparing your out-of-office message template. To say you will be absent I will be out of the office. I am not in the office. I am (currently) out of the office. I will be away from X to Y. To redirect the message Should the matter be important… If you require immediate assistance… For urgent queries… If you have an immediate need… …please email X. …please contact X. …please write to/call X.