I was always a little bit skittish about OOO’s in the pre-smartphone days. I don’t like the idea of announcing to the world that my house is going to be unoccupied all week.
(Aside: at my job, when you open a new browser window, a random picture of employee pets pops up. It changes every time. I could just refresh all day long.)
.
That is kind of glorious. And it does make sense when the person you’re emailing is gone for months. I did something similar my last mat leave except I didn’t explicitly state it, and lo and behold, people figured out that I wasn’t going to catch their email from a month or so earlier unless they brought it up again.
An old boss had a pet peeve about this so I became very conscious of making sure that I listed out who to contact on what day… before the group email. So it looked something like this:
And although my colleague had mixed feelings about her own parents joining that population in Florida, she couldn’t be too upset when her dad suggested flying down from Boston for a Red Sox spring training game.
Here's a million-dollar question: how do you get people to do what you want them to? That's where Calls-to-Action (CTAs) come in.
If you are checking emails while you’re out and are responding slower than normal, state that, suggests Jill Gugino Panté, director of the Lerner Career Services Center at the University of Delaware. “If you don’t have access to email and can’t return messages, state that as well,” she says. “The clearer you are in your messaging, the better.”
If you leave me a message that includes your name, telephone number and reason for calling, I will return your call when I get back. You have reached Jim Smith. I will be out of the office until Feb. 14. If you would like to leave a message after the tone, I will call you back when I return.
Pro tip: The first works well for both voicemail greetings and email responders, while the next two are most appropriate for emails.
Please be informed, I am in a workshop and would be having no/limited access to emails. I will be back in the office on 9th-October-2020 and will do my best to respond promptly to your email when I return.
I believe that it’s happened more than once. This news items includes a video with some other examples – ‘Wine and ghosts ‘ is my personal favourite. https://www.walesonline.co.uk/news/wales-news/man-responsible-welsh-translation-gaffe-15214716
12. "Hi, you've reached [company]. We're available by phone from [hour] to [hour] [time zone] Monday through Friday [optional: and from hour to hour on the weekends]. You can also contact us by going to our website, [URL], and live-chatting or emailing us. If you'd like us to call you back, please leave your name and number after the tone."
Leaving an email without a responder can appear unprofessional, lose potential business and, worst of all, make you look like Scrooge!
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But of course, you have to take care of a lot of year-end reports — planning out tasks, tying up loose ends, and perhaps, preparing for the coming new year. And then of course, when you are finally done and ready to take a break, there’s one final thing you must take care of while you take your break with your loved ones: Your out-of-office response.