With the Holiday season right around the corner, your office’s voicemail greeting should quickly inform callers of any potential changes in hours, days or availability.
When people leave first name contact only as if we’re supposed to know who Susan or Frank are..
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I am on annual leave until dd/mm/yyyy. I will allow each sender one email and if you send me multiple emails, I will randomly delete your emails until there is only one remaining. Choose wisely. Please note that you have already sent me one email.
We’ve certainly come a long way since the honeymoon days of You’ve Got Mail, the 1998 Meg Ryan romcom in which each new electronic missive set Tom Hanks’ heart fluttering (and vice versa). These days, in tech circles, you’ll hear tales of folk who’ve set their email servers up to automatically delete unread emails after a week – before going on holiday for a full fortnight. Others have reduced the OOO to a single word in the subject line: “Nope.”
When one of my colleagues is out of the office, he doesn't mess around. In fact, he's turned his auto-responses into a running series of commentary from fictional cartoon character Troy McClure.
Whether you're taking a personal or business trip, keep in mind that information contained in your OOO message could be used against you maliciously. Be sure to follow out-of-office message best practices to keep your company data secure. Create different out-of-office replies based on whether the message is going to someone inside or outside your company Avoid personal details Don't share your travel destination Don't provide direct insight into the chain of command Avoid listing your exact length of vacation
One of the most important tasks is to set up an auto-response system that notifies your
If your query is urgent you can contact my colleague, Rachael Farley, on [email protected] or call our office on 01325 778 786.
But I will be taking periodic breaks from eating, binge-watching, and probably from cooking, too, to check my email [once per day/every evening/occasionally] while I’m away.
Sometimes teams need the extra nudge to disconnect...here are our tips for getting your team to unplug from email over the holidays.
I find it rude, as well. If someone is emailing you (the royal you), it’s because they need something. Saying you’re just going to delete it without also giving that person a Plan B contact is totally rude. It sucks having to go through emails, it does. But it’s part of the job. In my role, I get requests from internal colleagues and from external partners. Even though I provide those partners with an alternate email to send their requests, it’s still my responsibility to make sure that the requests that were sent to me in my absence were handled. Saying “everything I’m sent will be deleted” just Would Not Fly in my industry.
I follow this TikTok account and she has a TON of these. I think it’s a culture thing. It would be inappropriate in many places but clearly it isn’t there.
I have a colleague who directs people to email an alternative email alias when she’s on leave. This alternative email alias? Yup goes to her. Don’t know why she does it. She’s also set a rule in her team that they have to answer each others’ phones of someone is away from their desk. Inevitably, the person answering the phone can’t help and tells the caller to send an email. It drives me up the wall.
Businesses that send autoresponder messages need to ensure that they provide alternative contact options. The automated email responses or text messages should clearly mention what way customers can reach out to the business.
One of the most common mistakes people make when setting up their auto replies is making them long. Nobody wants to read a long email message — and especially so when it’s an email message that tells them you’re not going to reply right now.
“Hi, Sorry I missed your call/text. I’m currently out of the office and will not be back until Feb 2. My colleague [name] has agreed to respond on my behalf, so feel free to forward the message to [phone] if it is urgent. You can otherwise expect a response from me once I return. Thanks for understanding.”
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