If you have a corporate email account at work, the chances are you'll also have some kind of setting that enables you to tell people when you're on holiday or out on the office on business. But what if you don't? Or just want to set up an email auto reply on your Mac at home?
You can include the range of dates that you will be away, but ultimately the sender wants to know when they can reach you again.
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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.
Professionally, I just try to be as boring as humanly possible, except in comments embedded in code.
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.
Optionally, click the Attach Invoice checkbox to automatically attach the customer’s invoice to the auto-response.
Our senior leadership has admitted to not checking voicemails since we started working remotely…almost 15 months ago. It made me feel so good. I hate voicemail.
Lastly, don’t forget to set your out-of-office greeting for your office and mobile phones while you’re out.
I actually think that’s a really helpful out of office message? I appreciate how clear it is about who to contact in which circumstance (so you’re not having to do the awkward dance of trying to track down the right people while not inconveniencing the wrong ones), while maintaining a friendly-but-firm boundary around the vacationing person’s time (since none of the options include things like “here’s my cell phone number!”).
So, take a lesson from @courtwhip, editor at PEDESTRIAN.TV, who wrote the above hilarious out-of-office email, fully stocked with mentions of the best movies from the 1990s. (By the way, "Splinter" is from Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, and as we all know, he loves pizza.)
Here’s my OOO nightmare: when I was a graduate intern a few years ago, there was a volunteer with severe, marginally treated mental health concerns. Her behavior toward me was inappropriate to the point that my school assisted me with a safety plan. I obviously blocked her on everything I could think of. Unfortunately while I was on winter break she emailed my agency address from an account no one knew about, got my OOO message, assumed it meant I was open to communicating again, and proceeded to have a monthlong meltdown in my inbox when I didn’t respond. To this day I am grateful for my city’s utter lack of public transit, which prevented her from trying to find my home and family.
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.
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].
Did you email me to ask me about content marketing software? Well then, don’t wait. [LINK] Get out introductory book now. It’s the beeds knees. Talk soon. Farewell Messages for Boss Thank You Messages for Boss Farewell Messages to Coworkers Congratulations Messages for Achievement Pregnancy Congratulations Card Messages
Note: You can also set different automatic out of office replies for different people. Just click the Rules… button in the bottom-left corner and add a rule for each person or email subject.
It was very inefficient but I was making $3 above minimum wage and it was air conditioned. So no argument from me. They took me back for the winter break and would have had me every other summer except I did internships, so I guess I didn’t do too badly.
Think about a soon-to-be-ex-colleague that really could do with some extra enquiries forwarded their way (call it 'paying it forward').