Additional resources: You might include a link to one of your webpages or a download if it provides information that can be useful to people while you are away.
Season’s Greetings! It’s my favorite time of year, which means I’m currently out of the office chugging mugs of cocoa, stuffing my face with cookies, and attempting to fulfill my life-long goal of memorizing every single line of [FAVORITE HOLIDAY MOVIE]. I’ll be back in front of my computer on [DATE] and will respond to your message at that time. If you need immediate assistance, please send an email to [NAME] at [EMAIL] so that the other elves in this workshop can help you out. Happy ho-ho-holidays!
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"[Auto-attendants] assist a business of any size in presenting a more organized, efficient, and, if necessary, more robust picture of itself,” points out Brandi Armstrong, Co-Founder of Telecentrex and blogger on evancarmichael.com. The right greeting can make the difference between a frustrated customer or a satisfied one.
With a slightly modified email address to mirror yours, they can easily impersonate you using the personal information provided in the OOO message and exploit your absence. Knowing where you are and how long you may be gone can lead to an attempt to initiate a transfer of funds or access confidential data. They might even go the extra step and reference how great their “trip” is going just to make the message appear genuine.
Setting a proper out-of-office email also puts pressure off you when you have limited time to respond to emails outside the office. We will look at a few examples together here:
A couple work friends and I banded together years ago to fill each others’ voicemails so it would be impossible to leave us new voicemails.
If you need assistance before my return please contact (name of colleague covering for you, with contact details).
When you’re trying to contact someone on a matter of importance (or even urgency) on one side of the equation and you find out via an autoresponder that they are away for vacation, it can be incredibly frustrating unless they’ve done the front-end work beforehand. (I’m speaking from personal – and recent – experience here. And worse, there was no auto-responder set up. I had to use the – gasp! – telephone to find out what was going on.)
Amanda works at HubSpot, and she came with a unique auto respondent that asked her contacts to guess where she is. To give background, she flew down to Boston to attend a Red Sox training game in the spring with her father. She chose to ask her contacts whether where they think she might be, and also this played some wonderful use of litotes here:
I will surely respond to your email when I’m back in the office. But, if this requires an immediate response, please resend any messages that require my immediate attention with a subject line of “URGENT: [Original Subject]”.
Holiday wishes to the offices are sent for wishing them a good holiday season. The offices regularly have holiday breaks to the employees to go on recreational holidays with their friends and family. During this period, the holiday wishes are sent to the offices to make the employees and the staff of the office feels good. The holiday wishes can be sent through cards or office mails to the offices. Sending the holiday wishes to the office through fax and text messages to the office numbers as well as to the employees is also a good gifting option. One can also send them through holiday wishes video clips on a DVD sent to the offices marked to the office staff. Following are some of the holiday wishes to office examples sent in different ways:
I used to work at a place that required me to update my voicemail EVERY SINGLE DAY with my schedule for the day as in Hi, today is xyz and I will me in a meeting from 11-12 and at lunch from 12-1 and be in the office all other times.
Unfortunately, I’m going to have to return your message. As it’s the holiday season, I’m currently away from the office. When I return, I’ll give your email a good solid read and find that your request is exactly what I needed after all! But until then, I’m going to keep it in the inbox so it doesn’t get damaged and revisit it after the holidays are over.
I’ve heard “please respond at *your* earliest convenience,” but never the other way around.
I will return with a glowing tan on [insert date] and respond promptly to all emails. If your request is time sensitive, please email [insert name] at [insert email].
Hi, I’m Troy McClure. You might remember me from such out-of-office messages as Avenge My Death if I Don’t Return from DMEXCO and Bye Now, I’m on an Absurdly Long Cycling Trip.
8. "Hi, you've reached [your name]. I'm unable to come to the phone right now. But if you leave your name, number, and a short message, I'll be sure to call back."