Top of the iceberg though. Oh, and she also works with external contacts, including prospective clients.
Thank you for your email. I will be out of the office from (day/month) to (day/month) and will have limited access to email. If you have any urgent questions, please contact [Name] at [email] or [phone]. I will do my best to reply to your email as soon as I can.
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Physical security is just as important as managing your technology when you are gone for the holidays. Take these key steps to ensure that your office is indeed locked up tight. Make sure no keys are left sitting out where they are easy to see or access. Check with security to make sure that they have keys to get in the building. Check security systems and cameras to be sure that they are fully functional. Make sure that the security system is sending a notification to someone who is actually in town for the holidays, not a manager who is going to be across the country! Lock up desks and filing cabinets, especially those that contain sensitive information. Place all keys in a safe location. Check doors and windows to be sure that they are locked. Review your incident response plan. Do you have a plan for how to respond when everyone is out of the office? This can include everything from a hacker going after your data to a physical emergency at the office.
I have a colleague who directs people to email an alternative email alias when she’s on leave. This alternative email alias? Yup goes to her. Don’t know why she does it. She’s also set a rule in her team that they have to answer each others’ phones of someone is away from their desk. Inevitably, the person answering the phone can’t help and tells the caller to send an email. It drives me up the wall.
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Depending on your idea of holidays as no-business time of the year, you may decide to leave at least one communication channel open, or provide additional information in case of urgent inquiries. In any case, you can add the following information to the mix: You can provide your mobile number, while noting that it can be used only in exceptional situations You can leave contact information of a person that will handle correspondence in your absence You can inform your customers that you will only check emails with “URGENT” in their subject
Every time I read it, it just gets funnier. On r/talesfromtechsupport, filter by top posts of all time, it’s on the first page. The punch line is … *chef kiss.
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."
When I tweeted this, some people argued that the pollster above was using his wife as an excuse. This might be true (and, if so, is probably a bad defense mechanism from some of the work culture habits described earlier). Another possible explanation is that the pollster is telling the truth — his inability to try and balance a vacation with some light work time built in is understandably frustrating and exhausting to those around him.
The only thing that isn’t boilerplate in mine is the inclusion of “But what if I have a word emergency?” before the who to contact stuff. I removed it at one point and people asked me to put it back in because it made them smile. And yep, we’re writers so the only emergencies we deal with are ones related to words.
2. Out of office sick leave template. You don’t need to tell the sender too much, but it is important to say you won’t be available. If it is a long-term illness, you might not have a date set for your return.
When one of my colleagues is out of the office, he doesn’t mess around. In fact, he’s turned his auto-responses into a running series of commentary from fictional cartoon character Troy McClure.
If you require immediate assistance, please email [email protected] in my absence. Thanks.
10. Basic Out of the Office Autoresponder Example. [Greeting] Thanks for your email. I will be out of the office on vacation until (Date). If you need more immediate assistance, then you can reach out to
Work-Life Balance6 Out-of-Office Templates for the Holidays That You Can Copy and Paste Now
What would be annoying would be receiving multiple emails from me to see if the pet changes each time the OoO is triggered, along with follow-up emails from me inquiring about Fluffiekins’s adoption status. :-) Otherwise, this is BRILLIANT. And on brand.
Note: While you could test your out-of-office message, you can also see it’s working because Gmail conveniently overlays a yellow bar at the top of your inbox reminding you that your autoresponder is on, along with options to “End now” or adjust your settings.