My pet peeve is OOOs for the afternoon/an appointment when the person who set it up is NOT good at responding to emails in a timely fashion. If someone usually requires multiple reminders and follow up emails for me to get a reply to an email after 2 weeks, I don’t really need a notification that their responses will be delayed an hour until they get back from the doctor. It makes me think “who are you responding to that quickly, and why can’t you reply to me that fast??”
The only thing that isn’t boilerplate in mine is the inclusion of “But what if I have a word emergency?” before the who to contact stuff. I removed it at one point and people asked me to put it back in because it made them smile. And yep, we’re writers so the only emergencies we deal with are ones related to words.
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An out of office message could become an opportunity to connect with your client on a more personal level. Consider sharing something about yourself that they might not have known about while working with you.
55% of B2C content creators say that creating visual content is now the main priority. Here are key ways of how adding visuals enhances your auto reply messages.
Website: https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/seven-examples-professional-out-office-autoresponder-email-ramadoss
Because of this, typical out-of-office replies will often split the difference between our hopes and fears and say something like: “I’m out of the office and can be reached but if you need assistance right away, please contact x person.”
Hey — you’ve reached my inbox, but hold on, the doorbell just rang. It’s the UPS driver. He’s loading me onto the truck. Dang, it’s stuffy in this truck with all these boxes. He’s taking me down to… Oh! Florida! And now I’m on the beach. Thanks, UPS driver!
Hello, and thanks for your email! If you’re getting this message, it means I’m taking my annual two-week creative sabbatical—working on personal projects that inspire me, so that I can return to work full of fresh ideas for my clients, like you! I’ll respond to your note once I return to the office on [DATE]. In the meantime, here’s a question: What inspires you? Do that, today.
How about warning people of what’s to come? Take a look at an example you can use below.
Q. I work on Main Campus and don't have essential business to conduct during the winter break closure; however, I want to catch up on work before spring semester. May I work on campus?
Dear Customer, Our office is closed and you can expect to hear back from me by [date]. Have a great holiday! Regards [Name/signature]
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Well, if you become too sick to work for longer than that, what happens then? Surely there’s some backup. If not, you’re not always going to be able to keep that promise.
When you share transparent business information and provide alternative ways when the relevant channel is not available, it delivers a delightful service experience.
To my mind, it’s just a really bad idea to mass delete stuff that comes in while you’re out. You never know if those emails contain important (though non-actionable) information that you’ll need. You really can’t expect people to resend information like that once you’re back, especially if you were cc’d on something.
“I’m offline and have sporadic access to email until X date. For urgent matters contact Colleagues A and B. For true work related emergencies you can call me at Cell Number”
Same, I think it’s patronizing to talk people through their options as if they can’t make a decent choice without having their hand held every step of the way. There are plenty of people who can’t, of course, but I don’t think a long, verbose message is necessarily going to help.