Out of office (OOO), messages can be an incredible tool to fuel your success. A good away message allows you to tell your customers that you’re away and encourages them to move within the sales funnel with more ease. Using automated messages during holidays or conferences can create social connections with recipients.
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The ability to schedule your OOO replies was literally the best feature ever to come to Outlook, and it took way too long.
I try to substitute “parental leave” for “maternity leave” whenever possible. Trying to normalize it as a benefit to all employees (at my company) rather than a special lady-vacation.
One common challenge faced by customers is auto reply email or text messages lack a specification about the estimated wait time to get answers for their queries.
And just like that, you covered the essentials. You don’t always need to have a Shakespeare-like auto-responder. If you, however, prefer a little creativity, continue reading- it gets more interesting.
When we have people go on maternity leave we normally arrange with them for mail to be forwarded directly to the person covering their leave, (but I’m in the UK so normally they will be out for 6-12 months)
We are having a temporary office move soon, and our head of facilities was delighted he didn’t need to find data ports for the phones as well as the PCs ;)
I work in a culture where even when you say you won’t have access to email, you are expected to be checking. I include this only on the internal auto-response, so that the people in my company know that when I say I won’t have access to email (which is also explained in the email), I mean it. Nothing else seems to work.
It’s so much easier for everyone to have an OoO that says “I’m gone- please contact PaperClipSortingTeam ‘at’ spacelyspacesprockets for help while I’m out.
I wish I could block my voicemail. I would so get fired if I had a message like this and was caught, though.
9. Office Closed for Christmas. Use this template for Christmas holidays. Hi (specify the Name field id), Our office will remain closed for Christmas. We assure you that all your emails will be answered as soon as we return to the office.
As a side note, I put a similar message on my work and cell phones, and once I didn’t change the cell message back for nearly a year. (It was my personal cell number, and only my parents ever left messages.)
“For the Symantec office, I send holiday wishes for the employees’ holiday out of office. I wish all the employees have lots of fun and adventure during the recreational holiday period. Have a happy holiday.”
Hah! Maternity/parental leave is often 1 year here, so there is zero expectation you will read or “catch up” afterwards. We keep our email addresses during where I work (Canadian government), so it’s standard to put an OOO that just says “on parental leave. Please contact X instead” with no reference to actually reviewing any of those emails, and often not even a projected date of return since people often flex their return date or take extra time, or just return to a different position entirely (out of choice).
When you’ve finally powered your way through that seemingly endless to-do list and are ready to check out of work-mode once and for all, there’s one final thing you need to take care of: Setting your out-of-office response.
Thank you for your email. I am out of the office in observance of [holiday] with limited access to email and will return on [date]. Your message is very important to me, and I will respond as soon as possible. If you need immediate access, please contact [number].