The attendant menu for your main contact number may be the first form of contact that a customer has with your business. Make sure your greeting is clearly articulated. Provide an option to speak with an operator if the caller has a question that is not addressed by the menu options.
When you have to be away from work even for a day, you have to add an out of office message so the person who is looking for you will know that you will delay with your answer or to know who else can contact you.
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When you’re out for the holidays, how can you express your thrill for the season without sounding, well, cheesy?
Exactly! This may be the type of person who hears a phrase that sounds polite when referring to another, but mangles it and uses it to refer to themself so it becomes the opposite of polite.
If they think you’ll be checking in, they might still attempt to get in touch with you. In the event that you take vacation time or personal time, they’ll try to contact you less often.
If your request is urgent, there’s no use sitting idly in my inbox. So please send your request to [Contact Name] at [contact email]. Whether you prefer to stick with something simple or have a little fun with your holiday out-of-office message, it’s important that you always make sure to at least include the basics: your return date and an alternative contact people can reach out to for urgent matters.
Please see the video here, explained step by step: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=h0jJwjpE87o. Hope this help.
Pet peeve: a fe people I know use the OOO reply to say something like ‘Have a great day!’ It is on all the time, and for no helpful reason.
“Hi, Sorry I missed your call/text. I’m currently out of the office and will not be back until Feb 2. My colleague [name] has agreed to respond on my behalf, so feel free to forward the message to [phone] if it is urgent. You can otherwise expect a response from me once I return. Thanks for understanding.”
An out of office email is an automatic response you can set up to be sent when someone tries to get in touch with you whilst you’re away from the office.
When I’m back in the office and going through emails, I’ll sometimes send a note of “I’m catching up on my emails and saw you had XX question – did you still need help with that?” before doing any in-depth research.
The worst one I ever received was from a coworker (senior to me, but not my manager) many years ago. I’ll paraphrase it as my memory isn’t great:
Hello! I’m going to be out of the office until [date]. If you need something before then, please contact [colleague] at [email] or [phone number] to receive assistance.Hello! Thank you for your email. I am out of the office right now but get back to you ASAP. You can expect a reply by [day] latest. For anything you need right away, you can contact [alternative contact option].
4. I am currently out at a job interview and will reply to you if I fail to get the position. 5. You are receiving this automatic notification because I am out of the office. If I …
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I used to have this on my personal voice mail, back when voice mail was used often since internet was over phone lines. I stopped using it because it confused too many callers. Invariably the first message would be “Hello? Hello? Mark? Fu-” (click). Then there’d be another call with a proper message.
PS: We love our downtime and here at HAR, we're big believers everyone needs a vacay from work. Yes, even you—the social media junkies, the workaholics, the entrepreneurial diehards who accidentally (or "accidentally") take their smartphone into the shower.