7. Only for you. Exclusivity is a powerful thing, and marketers have known this for a long time. The holiday sales season is a perfect moment to remind your contacts that being on your list has its perks.
That’s the simple structure of a voicemail greeting. Overall, your greeting should be professional, but the wording can vary depending on the situation. Check out a sample below.
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A retired small town newspaper guy once told me about the first time the publisher went on vacation and left him in charge (this would have been in the 80s). The publisher told him “Don’t call me unless the building burns down, and even then, don’t call me until the fire is out.” Good example of management setting vacation expectations.
Set your automatic out of office reply under the Outside My Organization tab. This is for people outside your company such as clients and suppliers. You can copy what you typed in for Inside My Organization or you can put something else for people outside your organization. You can even untick the “Auto-reply…” box if you don’t want to send them an automatic reply while you’re away.
When I worked at Nightmare Small Business(tm), a coworker went on maternity leave with (privately shared among the staff, but not with the owner) the intent to give her notice at the end rather than return. She left a very professional, concise and informative out of office message. The owner proceeded to log in to her email and change the message to include saccharine references to both the pregnancy/baby and how much she “missed” being away from clients and how excited she was to return soon.
6. Suggest Contacting Your Colleague. Rather than providing alternative contact details, you can encourage your users to reach out a colleague. Hey (specify the Name field id)
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And it's worth pointing out—in case, like me, you missed it because you were awed by her approach to her parental OOO—the response is completely in sync with the New York Times' culture/brand. (You can find her OOO with live links here.)
Note: If you don't see Automatic Replies, use Rules and Alerts to set up your out-of-office message.
If you are eligible for winter break but are required to work because you provide an essential service, your supervisor will notify you well in advance.
8. "Hi, you've reached [your name]. I'm unable to come to the phone right now. But if you leave your name, number, and a short message, I'll be sure to call back."
I saw a version of this on IG that was an old school (paper) OOO from an associate pastor. It has a line like “if this is an emergency and you must speak to someone, Jesus is always available on the mainline.” Too funny.
This is [NAME’s] bot. [NAME] is indisposed and unable to respond to your email. I’m replying to let you know that she will return to her desk on [DATE]. It is her intent to attend to your request promptly at that time. Meanwhile, [NAME] leaves you with the following message.Please ponder its significance: “I, for one, welcome our new robot overlords.” — [NAME]
Don’t forget all our offices will be closed for the Public Holidays this Thursday date. [Company name] will be closed to celebrate [Holiday name] and we will resume normal operation on [date]
I used to work at a place where we would occasionally send reports of network misuse that sometimes included inappropriate images the user had stored on work devices. One person had an email system that was somehow set up to make any attached images the profile pic for that account. So she would end up with random pornographic images as the profile pic whenever she received reports from us. She said she had no idea how to change it and could we please help? Since she was not part of our company, and I have no idea how that could even happen, I just started sending her kitten pictures after every report that included an image. Problem solved.
Whatever you decide before heading out for that much-needed time off, it’s imperative that you set up an out of office reply. Your customers and co-workers don’t get that same pause button as you do. That’s why you should inform everyone that needs to know about your time off.
Thank them for their email. Even though you're not actually responding to the email, you still need to mind your Ps and Qs. After your greeting, add "Thanks for your email."