Don’t stress about what to say in your out-of-office messages. Keep it simple, concise, and the people reaching out to you will know exactly what to do or when they’ll hear from you. And, most importantly, enjoy your time off! By Erin Ollila / May 16th, 2021 / Categories: Professional Development / Tags: holidays, out-of-office, time off, vacation, work, work from home, work life balance
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].
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I’ll be sure to reply to your message when I wade through my inbox upon my return. If your message is time sensitive, please send an email to [contact name] at [contact email].
Oh gosh. You’ve just reminded me that I was supposed to change my VM before every vacation or holiday at my old job. Something I completely forgot to do after the first year. Whoops!
Q. Will students who want to enroll or receive information from various departments be able to talk with someone during winter break?
If you don't want the messages to go out right away, select Only send during this time range.
It usually isn’t enough to just say you’re out and won’t be responding to messages. You’ve got to give people options for how they can get their issue or request resolved. One of the easiest wins here is to provide alternative contact information. That could mean providing your mobile number while you’re out, or, more commonly, providing the phone number and email of the colleague (or department) that will be covering while you’re away.
11. "Hi, you've reached [company]. Unfortunately, we're currently unavailable. But we want to talk to you — so please leave your name and number, as well as your reason for calling, and someone will call back ASAP."
Others like to take the opportunity to inject a little personality and make the reader smile, like our very own Rachael’s summertime out-of-office:
Q. Will administrative offices be open, in case there is some type of emergency during winter break?
There’s a term that we like to use around here called “snowbirds,” which is used to describe those who once resided in the northern part of the U.S., only to flee to warmer parts of the country during the winter.
And if you suspect that you won’t look through all those emails that cluttered up your inbox while you were on a vacation at all? Be honest about it and tell your prospects to contact you again at a certain date.
There were a lot of bilingual staff at my last job, and they always did their out of office messages in both languages. But who knows, maybe the Welsh translator was in a rush and forgot. An agency that handles government translations like road signs might be expected have such rules. On the other hand, never underestimate the boneheadedness of the monolinguals. Especially English ones.
You probably received a number of these emails, and thus you should be familiar with the information out-of-office emails provide.
Use your auto-response as an opportunity to connect your customers with a sales opportunity! Hey there, thanks for shopping Patagonia! We’ll respond to your message ASAP. While you wait, have you checked out or semi-annual sale? https://txt.st/PQBLPE
Again, this will depend HUGELY on what sort of role it is (an external-facing vendor, for example, should probably not use something like this). But for many internal requests, it is not power-tripping to ask someone to either redirect their email or wait until a later date to send it.
One of my reports ***NEVER*** sets their out of office. I have gotten pushback with, “Oh I just check my email while I’m out and forward if it’s important,” (NOT THEIR PLACE, PLUS THEY ARE HOURLY AND LEGALLY SHOULD NOT DO THAT). I have tried to remind which, I think ONCE over the last 6-7 years has worked. I should NOT have to remind someone of this. The one time they actually did it was a NIGHTMARE. Instead of Googling how to do it, they expected me to tell them how.