Of course, I had one POTENTIAL cient who got the “I’m in court and can’t call you back” repeatedly calling and demanding to know why I wasn’t calling him back. Like “I;m IN COURT DUDE. The JUDGE takes precedence over you.” He really expected me to tell the judge to take a recesss so I could call him back. I eventually got back to him with an email “I think you might be better off with another attorney.”
“There is nothing so terrible as activity without insight.” - Johann Wolfgang von Goethe I realize it can be tough to justify putting in the time ...
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The one exception: When I was out for a week and a half on my wedding/honeymoon, I included something about “Additionally, I am out of office getting married, so shortly after my return my name will change from Red Bookworm to Red Reader.”
True, but maybe the OOO writer has had issues in the past with people needing things while she’s out, incessant following up, not going to the right people, etc. She could also just think it’s funny though.
Website: https://www.onsip.com/voip-resources/smb-tips/after-hours-voicemail-and-auto-attendant-greetings
Something that actually was an issue with my employer ages ago: at one time there was a policy that out of office would only go to internal people, and nothing would be sent at all to anyone external. Apparently this was felt necessary in order to mitigate risk of burglary, so people wouldn’t know that “John Winchester has gone on a hunting trip” and that his house was empty.
My European colleagues get an extended summer holiday all at the same time, which means we get OOO notes like this:
I followed all the steps listed and can’t make this work for my iPhone 6s. Any suggestions?
I can see how it would be annoying to some people, but at least it has a bit of personality to it. Maybe I’m just tired of sending so many rote emails in business speak, but I do find it kind of refreshing if only because it’s a different kind of artificiality than I’m used to.
Half of the auto-replies I get are for very specific chunks of time. Like, if you are out of the office for three hours I don’t need to know, dude.
My boss requires us to put a nightly OOO message up, and I HATE it. I pushed back on it for months at first, because people know and understand that the reason no one is responding at 8pm is because the business is closed (or at least, they should understand that…). It wasn’t worth the fight, my boss thinks it’s so important, so I caved and just turn on the message every night. I think it makes us look immature and like we don’t understand business norms, but it’s not the hill I’m willing to die on.
As an employer one of our policies is to Call in absent days not text them in. This hasn’t worked well as employees ( especially young employees) will still text in those types of messages. It would be wonderful to have a feature in the iPhone that allows for instant text response that can be set up for certain contacts( employees). Something similar to an out of office message in email…” I am not receiving text, please call … … …. and speak to me directly”
And yet regardless of your job description, the humble OOO can do much more besides simply telling people not to expect a prompt reply. Crafted subtly enough, it can even drum up business for you. While they wait for you to respond, perhaps they’d like to check out your new website or sign up for your monthly newsletter?
iOS is offering a feature to set an autoreply for all incoming calls. Instead of merely rejecting the calls, you can send back pre-set messages while you reject it. You have an option to set three quick response message to send back while rejecting the incoming calls.
The best voicemail greeting I’ve ever encountered went like this: “If you’re hearing this message, please hang up and send me a text. I haven’t checked my voicemail since 2010.” And true to form, the mailbox was full and not accepting messages at that time. I appreciated her honesty!
I’ve run into the “no voicemail” thing at a few businesses where phone was the main mode of contact too, and it was hugely frustrating. You call your doctor to ask about, say, a billing issue, and it turns out they’re closed, but then it just says the office hours and “goodbye *click*”. Seriously? Sorry, /end rant.
In general, because of my position (C suite) my OOO messages are boring and predictable. I’m out from xx date to xx date. If you need help in my absence, please contact xyz person. Otherwise, I will reply to your email upon my return. blah blah blah