23. "Happy holidays! [I'm, the team at X company is] away until [date]. We'll make sure to call you back straight away when we return. If your request is urgent, email [emergency contact] at [email address]. Thanks, and have a wonderful day."
There’s just one problem with this approach: you’ve now obligated yourself to regularly check your email the whole time you’re out.
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To keep the customers happy as they get frustrated when their experience isn’t personalized. Uphold customer expectations as maximum consumers expect personalized services from brands. Create brand evangelists as customers are likely to become repeat buyers of a brand that personalizes interactions. Examples & samples of automated messages (Text, Email)
I think the problem is that “at your earliest convenience” is a formulaic convention that uses explicit, almost exaggerated politeness to basically issue a stern direction, meaning “as soon as you possibly can”. When you turn it into “at my earliest convenience” it’s unclear if you mean “whenever it’s convenient for me to get to it” (what the words say) or “as soon as I possibly can” (what the meaning of the formulaic original is). Or else it sounds like you didn’t quite understand how “at your earliest convenience” works.
I want to be clear that I don’t think OOO responders are the solution to the larger problems of worker inequality or the broad American cultural attitudes that celebrate and encourage overwork. That would be silly. The big remedies for what ails modern work will likely require workers organizing and employers recognizing and granting protections. Large companies will have to stop prioritizing shareholder at the expense of their workers. I’m aware how unlikely this feels in practice and how a thoughtful auto reply email feels like applying a band-aid on a gunshot wound. I get it.
Yeah. The overly cute OOO message reminds me of the overly cute messages people used to leave on their answering machines back in the day. “Hi, this is Jim. Hello? *pause* Hello? Is anyone there? *pause* Just kidding, I’m the one who’s not here! Please leave a message after the beep.” or whatever. Like, it’s funny the first time, then it’s just annoying. Just let people know what they need to know.
Think about a soon-to-be-ex-colleague that really could do with some extra enquiries forwarded their way (call it 'paying it forward').
Website: https://www.thebalancesmb.com/how-to-close-the-office-for-the-holidays-2533737
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.
I once left a kind of breezy, fun out of office message for “people inside my organization” that said the literal truth: “I am out of office this week at a mountain resort where I have paid many hundreds of dollars for someone to take my electronics away from me. I’ll get back to you Monday,” and a very normal and professional OOO for “people outside my organization.” Needless to say I returned to a message from a senior (but not, I stress, my boss or even on my team) colleague calling me out on it. People surely can make things their business.
After X enjoyable years, I do not work at [company] any more. Please contact [insert name and email] for enquiries relating to [subjects], or myself at [email] for personal matters.
2. Simple Autoreply Message #2. This is another simple “office closed for holiday” template you can use for your WordPress forms. Hi (specify the Name field id),
Option 1: Wait it out. Ask yourself, “Is this urgent and important?” If it isn’t, take a beat and give me a chance to respond after I dig myself out of my inbox later this week. You and I will be better off with this expectation set now.
Well, if you become too sick to work for longer than that, what happens then? Surely there’s some backup. If not, you’re not always going to be able to keep that promise.
I don’t think OP meant condescending to the person’s teammates so much as condescending to the reader. The person over-explains each option and I can see how it would read as ‘wow, you are really dumb and obviously need some handholding to figure out simple decision-making!’ That likely wasn’t the intent, I understand, but I get why people might take it that way.
The science fiction writer John Scalzi says “The failure mode of clever is asshole,” which seems to apply here.
Out of office messages can be as concise or detailed as you need but should follow a standard structure. Here are two templates you can use to create your own message.