You don’t need to turn off the “Driving” mode to make outgoing calls. And you can still access emails and messages as usual. The auto-reply will work as long as your phone in driving mode.
Help your users know when to expect a response. It’s easy to show customers your team’s availability and let them know when they can get assistance from your team. You can manage their expectations by setting your office hours and expected response time.
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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.
Don’t you wish you were here? I’m snorkeling, deep sea fishing, and doing all the touristy stuff for the entire week starting Monday, November 12th. I won’t be responding to calls or emails until I return on Monday, November 19th.
As CEO of a company, it is customary to send out organization-wide holiday wishes to all employees. If you are feeling stumped on what to say, check out these warm holiday greetings that you can send to your team.
I’ll add my shout out to MS and Outlook for not only being able to schedule OoO auto replies, but for having internal and external facing options.
Try something like, "For immediate assistance, please contact Boss Name at [email protected]."
Seriously, literally, anything but a voicemail. I’d take “sharpie on a dirty napkin delivered by carrier pigeon to my island vacation” over voicemails. I can’t flag voicemails for later. And also, we have this cool new feature where you can see missed calls. I do not need a voicemail just saying “Hey its Bob, call me back.”
Here is a good example of setting a queue message when all your support agents are busy.
Given free rein, I’d absolutely love to tell people that needing me to show them how to do X in Excel is actually not a vacation-interrupting emergency and there are tons of free videos that would explain that, if they did not want to contact the actual departments who handle tech support and training. Or that this project they’ve known about for a month but decided to keep under their hat until it became an emergency is something they’ll need to resolve themselves. But that would not fly at all.
Thanks for your email. I’m on vacation. On the couch. Eating chips. And bingeing Stranger Things for the eighth time (don’t tell anyone).
Set your out of office messages and determine who monitors division and department messages.
This is typically what I do. People don’t need to know where you are or what you’re doing. It’s really none of their business. They just need to know how long you’ll be out, that you won’t be checking email or vm while you’re gone, and who to contact instead.
That advice Reynolds jokily shared in fact goes directly against a recent article in the Harvard Business Review. Short, sure, and sweet, why not? But ruling out the personal and the emotional? Think again, because those are the very ingredients that can help your correspondents feel more connected to you. Colour your OOO with a dash of personal information – how about saying where you’re off to and why – and you’ve a ready-made conversation starter for the next time your paths cross.
That doesn’t sound odd to me at all, depending on the company. I used to send a staff-wide note because they needed to know I would be out and they could plan accordingly if they needed anything. At my current company I wouldn’t do this, but that’s because it’s massive and I only directly work with a small team.
Thank you for emailing me. I am currently out of the office, with no email access. I will be returning on [DATE]. If you need immediate assistance before then, you may reach me at my mobile [PHONE]. Kind Regards.
Thank you for your email. I’m out of the office and will be back at (Return Date). During this period I will have limited access to my email.