Honestly, what drives me crazy is after someone has emailed me, gets the out of office, then *does* email someone else instead of waiting for me to get back. Yet said someone doesn’t email me back to say “see you’re out, person X got it taken care of, you can disregard my email”. So then I waste time seeing the initial request and following up. Has anyone found a good wording / other solution to know if the request was completed by someone else?
My pet peeves are too much personal information (no need to tell me your cousin had a hysterectomy) and the ones that are carbon dated, e.g. from 2018.
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A clear, thoughtful out of office message saves the caller from troubles and inconvenience caused by your unavailability as they know what they should do next. Such a system avoids the negative impact that could come from the inability to respond to calls and messages. Your clients would likely try and contact you again and again, getting frustrated and losing trust in your business.
Examples of a generic thank you message for a wide range of situations: Thank you so much for your thoughtful Christmas gift. I really appreciated it! Hope you have a great new year! Thank you for thinking of me. That was so kind of you. Thank you for the Christmas gift. You helped make my holidays special. Thank you so much for the Christmas gift.
I try to substitute “parental leave” for “maternity leave” whenever possible. Trying to normalize it as a benefit to all employees (at my company) rather than a special lady-vacation.
I work in a culture where even when you say you won’t have access to email, you are expected to be checking. I include this only on the internal auto-response, so that the people in my company know that when I say I won’t have access to email (which is also explained in the email), I mean it. Nothing else seems to work.
If your request is urgent, please send your request to [contact name] at [contact email].
That’s my practice, too, though I only use it for times I’ll be out for a day or more. Some of the work I do and support can be very time sensitive and it’s really the most efficient use of *everyone’s* time if I spend two minutes before I leave setting up OOO so that they are quickly directed to the right person instead of having to go check my calendar, see I’m out for a week, try to remember who it is that’s my backup, etc.
They only discovered this AFTER the Christmas rush. Thankfully there were no client meltdowns that year or it could have been a lot worse.
I find it rude because if I emailed them, it might be an FYI but requiring no action. If they just delete it, they might then be confused about project status later. I would be annoyed to have to re-send a message after the fact because they don’t think ANY email during their time off has value.
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.
That’s so weird! Email is the correct way to reach a teleworking person, that’s the worst place for an OOO message. Stick an OOO sign on your physical office door, by all means!
Dear Customers. We, the employees of this office are going to take our days off from the 25th of December to the 5th of January 20XX in lieu of Christmas and winter vacations. Your needs are Supreme to us so one of our representatives will be available 24/7 in case of answering any query you may have. Feel free to contact us on the following number [X].
First things first: let’s go over the basics of an OOO email. In your away message, you typically include the following: A quick “I’m out of the office” phrase. The date or time range you’ll be out. Who to reach out to in case the sender needs immediate attention. A sign-off.
1.) Добро пожаловать в «Вася Пупкин и Ко». Наша телефонная горячая линия не работает во время праздников. Наш график работы можно найти на нашем сайте www.joendoe.de – Благодарим вас за оказанное доверие. Желаем вам и вашим близким приятных праздников и счастливого Нового года.
Let them know that while you’re not technically OOO, you aren’t operating at typical capacity.
Every customer interaction is important to showcase your brand personality and auto reply messages are no different. Hence, you need to make the right use of every opportunity and convert it into a good experience. Automated reply messages help you to provide great customer experience and also sets the right expectation.