It’s my favorite time of year, which means I’m currently away from my inbox chugging mugs of cocoa, stuffing my face with cookies, and attempting to fulfill my life-long goal of memorizing every single line of [your favorite holiday movie].
Please note that employees should not be on campus during the closure without the permission of the relevant vice president or dean to ensure we achieve the goal of decreasing the density of campus.
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There are some places where the culture absolutely embraces this type of…expression so it may be that it works just fine.
Dear Customer, Please note that on [day], [date], is [holiday name]. The store will be closed all day and will open again at [time] on [Day]. Enjoy the holiday. Regards [Company name]
Yes, this, and when people use OOO message as a “do not disturb” but then email you back right away. That’s not how OOO or email works!
1) Communicate when a person will be back, or if they are out for an indeterminate period of time, tell me who I should be contacting instead 2) Communicate what I should expect. (For example, when I do my monthly reports, I have an out of office message that says that I’ll be slow to respond. I *will* actually check my email at least a couple of times, but I generally won’t respond to anything non-urgent.) 3) If the person is in a job that handles urgent requests, list who I need to contact instead if it can’t wait until they get back.
Our office will remain closed until the end of this week for Thanksgiving Holidays. We assure you that all your emails will be answered as soon as we return to the office. Happy Thanksgiving!
Here is an auto reply message example that provides an alternative email contact option to assist customers during the absent period. Thus, helping customers not to make impromptu decisions and understand the next course of the move.
We also had company wide announcements that all of Spain was going on holiday in July, and then France would be gone on August, so please wrap up any business for the summer before then :’)
Of course I’ll still be glad to hear from you – try me at this email: [insert email].
I say “as soon as possible,” which to me means “as soon as possible after I get back to the office, make myself a coffee, throw out the milk I forgot in the fridge, chat with my colleagues a bit, check in with my boss, and triage all the new emails and VMs that came in while I was away.”
Hi there, Thanks for your email. I am out of the office right now and will not return until [MM/DD]. Fortunately for you, our resources never take time off and we’ve got this awesome ebook / whitepaper / infographic on [TITLE] that I think you would enjoy. I’ll get back to you as soon as I get back into the office. Best.
Thank you for your email. I’m out of the office and will be back at (Return Date). During this period I will have limited access to my email.
Hey, Thanks for your email. I’m not in the office and am on a family vacation. I assure you that all your emails will be answered as soon as I return to the office on [date]. Kind regards.
The eternally mind-blowing story of the company-wide email, OoO messages, and reply-all autoresponders that took out a 30,000 employee university email server one summer, comes to mind here…
Was required to do this at my last job and our script was to say “I’m working from home today. If you need to reach me urgently, call me at (personal/home/cell number).”
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.