I am currently out of office on annual leave. I’ll get back to you straight away when I return on [end date]. If it’s urgent you can contact [contact’s name] on (contact’s email).
NOW READ: How to keep shoppers happy and secure sales in the bustling Christmas period
.
Automated reply messages are a great way for businesses to fulfill customer support expectations of receiving a prompt response for their chat or email requests. Automated reply messages empower businesses to:
I am currently on my annual leave and will return to the office on *date*. If your request is urgent, please contact my colleague *name* at *email* or *phone*.
Remember to make sure your auto-reply has a limit to how often it sends replies to any one address. If they reply to every single email they recieve, they can cause problems: https://www.reddit.com/r/talesfromtechsupport/comments/420oan/companywide_email_30000_employees_autoresponders/ I actually had that happen while I was on vaca, a travel agency e-mailed me with an update about my vacation from a no-reply mail box and triggered my auto reply, which triggered their “This is not a monitored mailbox” auto reply to the tune of 80,000 messages in my mailbox. It completely filled up my “available” space, so everytime I logged in and thought I had them cleared out, more would pour in. It took DAYS to delete all of them.
This is hilarious. I always read those kinds of efficiency hacks and think “wow, I wish I had the kind of job that let me set hard, weird boundaries for myself that inconvenience everyone else,” and now I learn that I apparently could have just asserted it without it being appropriate at all.
But the best OOO (actually, an autoreply) came from Ryan Reynolds – you know, the actor and gin company owner. If you emailed him, you got this (I think there were others too – this is the one I got): Thank you for your interest in Aviation American Gin! You’ve reached my Out Of Office Mission Statement.
We used to do this at my old job in addition to OOO messages. I found it useful to know in advance how long people were going to be gone. There’s nothing more annoying than needing something urgently from the one person who can help and then getting an auto-response saying they’re out for the next 2 weeks.
Thank you for your email. I am no longer with [company name]. Please direct enquiries to [insert name and email] or [insert name and email].
I agree about the out of office reply. Made me laugh. Given that I work a high stress job, I can always use some laughter, so I actually don’t mind it.
Customer ServiceSalesCustomer EngagementEcommerceEnterpriseEvent ManagementTelecom
It’s important to get the tone and content right because it can make or break your reputation as a company.
Fed official warns of ‘extreme’ market reaction unless debt ceiling raisedUK fuel crisis threatens to hit health services and industryMerkel’s natural heir: how Olaf Scholz won Germany’s electionNo 10 plans to lower salary level at which graduates start repaying loansUK government to take control of Southeastern rail franchise
This is too much. If someone said something like “I’m at the beach until Jan 5!” instead of “I’m out of the office until Jan 5,” I’d appreciate the slight personal touch. But don’t share too much. We just need to know that you’re not gonna answer our email for a while.
My fav is the one I got that was “I’ve retired and I won’t be checking this account EVER AGAIN!”
Not an out of office reply but a voicemail greeting: at a previous job I called someone and her voicemail greeting said that she would be out of the office from Day – Day and that her voicemail wasn’t accepting messages during that time, click! The time in question was six months prior. Plenty of people she worked with and for could have called her on it and apparently had not, so she just … didn’t get voicemails. Like, that was not a way you could communicate with her.
AH #2 – Closed with Voicemail. Thank you for calling Business Name. We are currently closed for the Christmas Break and will be reopening for business as usual on Time and Date. If you would like to leave a message, please do so after the tone including your Name and a Contact number and we will be in touch when we reopen.