Every business is unique. There’s no one single best way to tell your clients that you’re not going to be around for the next few days (weeks or months). But there’s also no denying that whatever out of office message you use right now, you could always improve it.
Not an out of office, but I had a sign I used to put on my closed door whenever I was head down on something and didn’t want to be disturbed:
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I absolutely hate this and it would definitely irritate me if received. I agree with the letter writer that it comes over as condescending and also a bit passive agressive in places. I’m definitely not the audience for this one! Presumably this is an internal only version and the company culture would find this cute / funny.
I do feel like the person who wrote it may have some issues in their organization with, oh let’s call it fire fighting. People who don’t necessarily think through the process of who would be most effective at dealing with the problem at hand. This reads like the message of someone who is used to getting everything dumped in their email and this OOO is an attempt to manage expectations and distribute issues to the people most able to quickly and effectively deal with a range of problems
We do OOO messages, but also send an email to the department and other relevant people, so that part doesn’t sound odd to me. I want to know if someone is going to be away next week, because then I can plan accordingly instead of sending them an email about something important Monday morning and find out I’m SOL until the following week.
A. No. All of the restaurants, including Starbucks and other eateries in Thompson Student Union, will be closed during winter break. They will reopen the second week of January.
Leaving an email without a responder can appear unprofessional, lose potential business and, worst of all, make you look like Scrooge!
That really does feel excessive. I think most people are savvy enough to think, ‘Huh, it’s late in the day for pretzelgirl, I might not get a response until tomorrow. Business as usual.’ Being out of communication for a day – travel, meetings, days off – doesn’t require an out of the office alert, either, just a response as soon as possible.
Hello, All our stores will be closed until the end of the week for [Christmas]. We will respond to all your inquiries once we are back on [date]. Merry Christmas! Regards [Name/signature]
“I will be out of the office between date and date. If your email requires urgent attention please contact Insert Name Here.” Imo that’s enough
Don’t know if those happen due to bad software, or a bad configuration decision, or just careless users, but those exhaust me.
I have always said that I’m taking annual leave so that still applies for me – but that’s pretty standard for my company.
6. Maternity leave out of office template. Taking maternal leave, and indeed any parental leave, often means more time off work than standard annual leave.
Hello ! Please note: (insert date) are company holidays for many of our employees. Because of this, there will likely be a delay in reply to your ticket, possibly until (insert return date) when most of our team returns. In the case where you do receive an initial reply from one of our employees, their subsequent replies may be delayed. We have received your email request and will process it soon. While we process your request, please make sure to check out our extensive list of documentation for WPForms by clicking on this link (Link). Thanks!
“Greetings. I’m away on holidays for a week and unable to respond to your call/message. I will return to the office on Jan. 20 and respond to you at the earliest. Hope to talk to you soon.”
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I emailed this person 3 times and never got a response. Thankfully they weren’t upset when we moved forward without their input.