[Company name] office is closed today for the [holiday name] and will reopenam [date]. [Company name] Online and our website is available throughout.
© 2020 THE UNIVERSITY OF TOLEDO • 2801 W. Bancroft St. • Toledo, OH 43606 • 800.586.5336
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I worked in a call center for Big-Evil-Bank for five years, and every new manager would have a different OOO policy/pet peeve that they would require phone-miners to follow. In particular, the memory of the six month period where we were forced to put an OOO up if we left our desk for so much as ONE HOUR smacked me in the face when I saw question. That was by far the worst/strangest/most tedious OOO policy I have ever been forced to follow.
I managed to get through 9-month contract roles at two different workplaces without ever setting up voicemail. Even though they were not phone-oriented workplaces I’m a little surprised I got away with that! Interestingly, in all that time only one person ever noticed and said something.
Most awkward/painful one I ever saw was a former co-worker. ~10 years ago when he left on paternity leave, he said as much in his out of office. The baby was stillborn. It stayed up for the month or so until he returned. Those of us in the same office of course knew the situation, but we regularly communicated directly with multiple offices in different states and countries. The very first time I saw it I was overcome with dread about how many congratulations he would receive and have to tell the story to. I was much younger and afraid to rock the boat then, but I think now I would push his manager and IT to use their ability to access his account and change it.
There ought to be a word - and perhaps there is, in German - for the mix of feelings that accompanies composing and activating a holiday out-of-office message. There's smugness, of course, and a gratifying sense of laying down one's virtual tools after a horribly long shift. But for many of us, these nice feelings are tempered by the knowledge that in two weeks, refreshed but depressed, we will have to trawl through hundreds of emails, many of which will be conference room notifications for meetings about crises that have passed.
Thank you for your e-mail. I will be on leave on 26th Jan with no access to email. I will revert to you on my return on 27th Jan.
If your message is unclear or incomplete, it can create a negative impression on your customers when you are away. For example, if your message does not clearly state what dates you will be unavailable, your clients and co-workers are likely to fill up your inbox with messages, making it difficult for you to catch up when you are back. Failure to include the contact information of the person they can contact in your absence can affect your ongoing projects.
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I worked for a federal contractor back during the Great Recession when government offices were shut down/working with a skeleton crew. I still remember getting OOOs from almost every email address in the agency we worked at explaining they were on furlough & to contact one specific person if the issue was urgent. We all assumed this poor person was hiding under her desk, rocking back & forth, with her head in her hands.
Education Details: The following listing of out of office email messages serve as perfect examples to the type of message you can create. I will be away from [date] until [date]. For urgent matters, you can contact [name]. I will be out of the office from [date] until [date]. If …
The subject line. This is the very first thing your customer will see, before they even open your email. The opener. The first line is what greets the customer as soon as they open your email. The “thank you” The body. The email signature.
I should note that our voicemail system has a pretty straightforward feature to put an end date on an out-of-office voicemail message. I am baffled why this person does not use the feature.
If you don't want the messages to go out right away, select Only send during this time range.
Dude, my brain is not friends with my ears. It’s not psychological, my brain’s just less reliable than Siri at transcribing your voicemail. No one wants me calling them back explaining that I don’t handle the otter scriptorium inks when really they wanted a chocolate teapot.
These messages are useful at virtual Christmas parties, and to include on a virtual holiday party invitation.
Going back to how some people can’t ever switch off, this person went above and beyond for their auto-email with a humorous graph that very accurately shows the highs and lows of stress levels before, during and after time away.