Your out of office message can link to testimonials from your happy clients. For those of us in travel, you could try something like:
People really just need to know that I’m either definitely not going to reply (annual leave) or might but delayed (all day meetings) plus when I’m back and who to contact if it is urgent.
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“We all need breaks from time to time. Today I will be disconnecting from all things work, and going for a walk to smell the roses and soak in the sunshine.”
I have always said that I’m taking annual leave so that still applies for me – but that’s pretty standard for my company.
We’ve gone into lockdown in my state again, and one of my colleagues (events) has put the following as her out of office: Thank you for your message, I am working however there may be a delayed response as we manage our current events that have been affected by the recent XXXXXX Lockdown. I will respond to your request as soon as I am able. If the matter is time sensitive that can not wait please contact me on my mobile:
Our sincere gratitude to those brave men and woman who have served our country and paid the ultimate sacrifice. Event Properties Event Date 05-25-2015 Event End Date 05-25-2015 Capacity Unlimited
“Hi, I’m Troy McClure!” We’re not sure who wrote the original Troy McClure out of office message, but this version by Paul Sokol of Infusionsoft is a real gem.
I include my boss because I have different backups for five or six different parts of my job, and my boss is more likely to know the nuances of which one is the appropriate contact than the person sending the email, so it’s more likely to get to the right person if she redirects than if the emailer tries to guess which one of the six contacts I listed is the one who can solve their problem. (My specialty is the “other things as requested” section of my job description; I’m sort of a jack of all trades around here. :) )
Thank you for your email, I’m currently out of the office and celebrating the holidays until [insert date]. For immediate assistance, please contact [insert name] at [insert email] and one of Santa’s helpers will assist you!
Sometimes teams need the extra nudge to disconnect...here are our tips for getting your team to unplug from email over the holidays.
Though you were ending with a “for everything else, there’s Mastercard” for a moment!
Given free rein, I’d absolutely love to tell people that needing me to show them how to do X in Excel is actually not a vacation-interrupting emergency and there are tons of free videos that would explain that, if they did not want to contact the actual departments who handle tech support and training. Or that this project they’ve known about for a month but decided to keep under their hat until it became an emergency is something they’ll need to resolve themselves. But that would not fly at all.
I just say “following my return to the office” because saying “as soon as possible” isn’t actually when I’m going to respond — I may have other priorities when I get back that take precedence over responding to a week old email that wasn’t important enough for them to contact my backup. That said, it doesn’t bother me when other people do it!
I don’t. They just have to wait. The people in my office that could have a legitimate emergency that requires my input have my cell number, and they’d just call me.
Here is a good example of setting a queue message when all your support agents are busy.
Like, relax. If the dates are outdated, you can probably safely assume I’ve returned already and that I’m spending my time getting back to people instead of worrying about my very clear out-of-office message. If you’re really concerned, you can contact the backup person whose information I provided IN THE MESSAGE to confirm or just, you know, text me.
I think I started following that Tiktok account after this video and, if I recall correctly, the OOO writer is an SVP who is trying to reset a company culture that has very little work/life balance. I always liked it, but that background info made me love it that much more.