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“We all need breaks from time to time. Today I will be disconnecting from all things work, and going for a walk to smell the roses and soak in the sunshine.”
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With all these changes, the simplest tasks come saddled with a lot of extra questions. Take the out-of-office message. Do you really need an out-of-office autoresponse if you haven’t seen an office since March? The simple answer is yes.
Editor's note: This post was originally published in February 2018 and has been updated for comprehensiveness. Try This Effective Prospecting Voicemail Script [Tips Included] Sales | 12 min read
Using the auto reply messages rightly helps the business from taking impromptu decisions. Here are some samples and templates of automatic reply messages across various scenarios. 1. Offline messages with live chat. If the visitors land your website after business hours or during holidays and do not get any response they might slip away.
The worst one I ever received was from a coworker (senior to me, but not my manager) many years ago. I’ll paraphrase it as my memory isn’t great:
If you need immediate assistance with [project or department], please contact [name and contact information]. For assistance with [project or department], please contact [name and contact information].
If you are part of the sales team in your organization, out of office emails is a great way to promote your products even while you're out of office. Hello, Thank you for your email. I am out of office until April 25 and I'll respond to your email as soon as possible upon return. While you're here, please check out our new book, "How to 10X your sales." You can get a copy at Amazon.com. In case of an emergency, please reach out to my colleague. Sandra Sloan at [email protected] or 123-456-7890. Regards, Kevin Gabriel Sales Associate. Examples of Permanent Out-Of-Office Email Autoresponder
Rather than clutter your general greeting, set an auto-attendant for a campaign-specific phone number. You can assign a unique number to each of your campaigns. Record a voicemail message that helps callers to learn more about your marketing campaign.
In November 1919, President Wilson proclaimed November 11 as the first commemoration of Armistice Day with the following words: "To us in America, the reflections of Armistice Day will be filled with solemn pride in the heroism of those who died in the country’s service and with gratitude for the victory, both because of the thing from which it has freed us and because of the opportunity it has given America to show her sympathy with peace and justice in the councils of the nations…"
For any requests you might have, feel free to reach out our [Title] [Name] at [email / phone].
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.
I’m guessing that this comment was gratuitously cruel on purpose just for the lulz, but I’ll give it a serious response anyway:
You may not think it, but an auto-attendant is an important part of your business. It is typically the first point of contact with your customers, as they will call your main number with sales inquiries, troubleshooting questions, etc.
Thankfully, setting this up in Gmail is easy to do and only takes a few minutes. Here are step-by-step instructions for setting your out-of-office message, plus some helpful examples you can steal for your own use:
One thing that happens when you regularly send a newsletter out to tens of thousands of people is that you see a lot of automatic Out Of Office (OOO) email responses. The most common one I receive goes something like this: Hi, I’m out of the office until __ and may be slow to respond to email. If it’s an emergency, you can reach me at __ or please contact __. Thanks!
Thank you for your e-mail. I will be on leave on 26th Jan with no access to email. I will revert to you on my return on 27th Jan.