Are you creating a voicemail greeting for your entire company or team? These business voicemail greetings will do the trick.
Once the person reaching out to you realizes you’re gone, they may panic if they have a legitimate need for immediate support. The best way to avoid this is to let your callers (and emailers) know how to find the appropriate help.
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That’s what I always reasoned… better to annoy with too much information that saves hassle on the backend then be brief upfront and sentence people to OoO purgatory.
Website: https://www.bestvirtualparalegal.com/blog/client-relation-case-management/10-best-office-closed-for-holiday-messages
I guess it’s relatively minor, but I once emailed a local government official with a question about building permits (just as a citizen, not work-related) at about 10am on a Monday and got an out-of-office reply stating she’d be back “Monday” with no date. So I had no idea whether she was already back and hadn’t turned off the message yet, in which case, not urgent, I’ll wait, or was out for a week, in which case, I’d like to ask someone else. Not a big inconvenience, but it was so illogical not to give a date that it really drove me crazy
1. Out of Office Template #1 For the Person Who Works at a Traditional Company. Hello, Thank you for your email, I’m currently offline until [date]. I’ll reply to your message promptly when I return.
Yes! I hate the “at my earliest convenience” for the same reason – it comes across as “I’ll do it when I feel like it”. I would only use that phrase at work in terms of someone else (ie “at YOUR earliest convenience”).
And a darn good one... we hire brilliant people, provide extensive training, and develop one of a kind experiences.
Setting your out of office may be different depending on the email provider you use. But whether you’re on Outlook, Gmail, or another platform, it should be a relatively straightforward process.
Ha reminds me of an admin here once who would leave like 10 bullet points on who to contact for what. We got a kick out of the point that was “for catering emergencies…contact…”.
Hi, I will be out of the office starting [MM/DD] through [MM/DD]. If you need immediate assistance during my absence, please contact [name] at [email] or [phone]. I will respond to your emails as soon as possible upon my return on [MM/DD].
I would say that "best of luck" would refer to something more specific, Whereas "All the best" is a generic well-wishing.
What we need in our work communication is not more professional politeness or less formal, chat-based messaging applications like Slack. We need honesty. The problem is that we’ve conditioned ourselves to see honesty as self-indulgent or disrespectful. I’d argue the opposite is true. Honesty, even if it’s a bit more inconvenient for all parties in the moment, pays dividends later. It builds trust. When my partner Anne Helen Petersen and I were interviewing people for our forthcoming book on remote work, a frequent lament from both middle managers and workers was that they didn’t feel like they knew how to succeed in their jobs; that they were guessing what their superiors and coworkers wanted and, even when they asked, they didn’t quite trust the responses they got back.
Top of the iceberg though. Oh, and she also works with external contacts, including prospective clients.
As with all winter breaks, but especially in a longer break, division and department leaders are responsible for ensuring that external contacts are aware of the closures and as appropriate salaried staff are performing services as necessary to meet the needs of the community during the closure, including checking email/voicemail and responding to time-sensitive matters.
I’ll return on [date] or after I watch [favorite holiday movie] one too many times (whichever comes first)—and will respond to your message at that time.
See, in my head, “as soon as possible” reads simply as a more formal way of saying “I will respond at my earliest convenience.” Like, either way, this person is getting back to you as soon as they can, whatever that actually means.