Again, be as specific as possible and provide as much detail as possible on how they can get their questions answered or problems resolved. This will ensure you come back to fewer fires and headaches.
Give yourself some slack when promising people to keep up with their messages. If your vacation ends on January 18, but you know that you won’t be able to check up on old emails for the next couple of days, mention that in your reply.
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One of the most important tasks is to set up an auto-response system that notifies your
Rather than sounding like a boring email robot, you could add a funny tone to your letter. Use a GIF or a meme to joke about what you’re doing on vacation, but remember not to go overboard.
It’s possible I might quote from some responses to this in an upcoming column, so please note if you don’t want me to do that with yours!
Thanks for your email. I’m currently on holiday with my family for the first time in what seems like forever. For urgent matters, [NAME] will help you. She doesn’t have a cape, but she is basically Superwoman. See you real soon.
Hahaha. This sounds like somebody thought the phrase “at X’s earliest convenience” sounded vaguely businessy and professional, but didn’t realize the pronoun is always supposed to be “your”. It’s never “my”, for the reason you mentioned.
Be aware of your tone. Keep it clean and simple. Sullivan says: “Even if you work in a casual office environment, the people emailing you may not. It's fine to have a light tone in your communications, especially when you're in an email conversation with someone directly, but your OOO is more of a blast message—including a cat meme or silly quote could backfire if your OOO goes to, say, a new client prospect or the sales director at a company you've been trying to engage.”
Yes! I remember reading here the phrase: the default mode of clever is asshole. Meaning when trying to be clever backfires, you end up just looking like an asshole. I’ve given up the need to get laughs at my clever sense of humor while at work. I really hope that out of office message is for internal emails only, because the risk of this landing badly is too high.
If those weren’t bad enough, if anyone on that lists sets up an out-of-office message, it *automatically* replies all. If the email bounces back, it bounces back reply all. One guy left the company and his email had a permanent out-of-office auto reply. The list was quite busy for a month or so and the message popped up multiple times a day.
There is no option on the iPhone Mail app to set the vacation response for emails. However, like iCloud, most of the other email providers are also offering to set an automatic vacation response, including Gmail, Yahoo Mail, HotMail providers.
“We hope you that this holiday season finds you enjoying every single minute of it. We are aware that this is the time of the year everyone is looking forward to and we are no different from you in that regard. Since we hope to spend some quality time with our families and friends, holiday closure period is ahead of us. We hope that you will enjoy the holidays just as much as we will.
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We promise the world will not end while our offices are closed and encourage you cherish this time with your families and friends!
If your matter is urgent you can contact (contact person with contact details) for assistance.
That would drive me mad. I’m okay with in meetings all day but if you’re just going home at a normal time that’s ridiculous!
What Should Your Vacation Message Include?A subject, with the dates you leave and returnWho to contact in an emergency (name, email, and phone number)Point of contact for non-urgent inquiries (name, email, and phone number)Keep Your Message Professional