If you are traveling for a work-related conference or business trip and have limited access to email, let people know in the body of the message. This shows that you are active in industry circles and that you’re dedicated to learning and serious about your professional development. This will win major credibility points in the eyes of your email inquirers.
5. It’s not all about Christmas, Cyber Monday, or Black Friday. When referring to the holidays, you might be thinking about Thanksgiving, Christmas, or maybe Hanukkah.
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I usually put my boss in my OOO, because if something is so urgent that it needs to be delegated RIGHT NOW then it’s urgent enough that my boss should know about it, and he’s also in the best position to know who on the team to delegate it to based on everyone’s workloads and what can be dropped. But the most likely result is that whoever is emailing me either waits for me to get back because it’s not that urgent or goes to the next/backup person based on our central documentation about who to contact for particular issues.
I don’t do them for meetings. I do have one that I turn on every Tuesday afternoon since I don’t work Wednesdays. In our culture it’s not uncommon for people to check EMail when they’re off. I don’t do that so I need to let people know. I also put a status message up on Teams. I work with a team of 40 people and I can’t expect them all to remember when I’m there and when I’m not!
While the above is almost certainly a dramatisation, getting your out-of-office message right over the holiday period is arguably as important as all other facets of business. Cashflow? Investments? Who needs ’em when you’ve got an auto-response that’ll make people chortle!
The autoresponder messages give information like how long the person you are reaching is unavailable and who else is the person in the absence and from when will the person be back available. Make sure the message is not too lengthy and is set up easily and conveniently understood by the email users. Try to manage your absence in such a way that the client doesn’t get affected and uninformed.
Next time you’re setting up your vacation responder, consider using this quick guide to help you be more creative and professional when needed. Use your out-of-office message to inform, assist, or delight the email sender. It will be a pleasant exercise for you and might make them smile.
In conclusion, an eager customer trying his or her best to reach out to you is the last person you want to disappoint. Make their day special with an unexpected or quirky autoresponder email that your customers wouldn’t have thought they’d see in their inbox in a million years.
The above automated messages do not sound assuring as the time is not specified in terms of hours, days, or week. Here is a good example that businesses can follow to deliver effective customer service communication.
Unfortunately I didn’t save it, but I once received of office reply that included a synopsis of the “comedic novel” they were working on during their time off.
Hi, Happy holidays! I am currently out of the office, with no email access. I’ll be returning on [date] and will get back to you as soon as I can. Happy holidays!
If you think someone else at First Round Capital might be able to help you, feel free to email my assistant, Fiona ([email protected]) and she’ll try to point you in the right direction.
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.
A thing my employer does is when someone leaves, they just shutoff the email. So someone goes to the trouble of writing an out of office explaining that they have retired or accepted a job somewhere else and where someone can go for help and IT just nukes the email address 24 hours after the person leaves. Then whomever was contacting them has no idea where to turn next. It is a terrible policy.
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.
As 2020 winds down, lots of people (us included) will be out of the office celebrating the holidays with family and friends. Here are some really funny, clever and snarky out-of-office messages sent this year, courtesy of HubSpot Blogs (full article here).
Hi! I will be out of the office this week. If you need immediate assistance while I’m away, please email (COLLEAGUE NAME).