1. Add your office closing dates to your email signature block a month in advance. Highlight it to make sure it stands out as your regular clients/customers probably don’t even look at your email signature anymore. 2. Add your office closing dates to your November/December invoices. Most clients/customers will thoroughly read an invoice to
Rather than a number of days or vague phrasing like “this week,” giving exact dates helps prevent confusion and lets senders know when they can expect a response from you.
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But what should you do to keep the message informative, engaged and maybe a little festive?
When it comes to the final days before vacation, people tend to fall into one of two camps: 1) those who watch the clock incessantly, and 2) those who are so busy before they leave, they might even forget to put up an out-of-office (OOO) email message.
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Thank you for your message. I am currently out of the office, with no email access. I will be returning on (insert date).
“Hello, I am out of the office from [date] to [date] for a family vacation. I have limited access to phone and will try to reply to you upon my return. If you need any urgent information, please contact [person] at [phone number]. Happy holidays!”
The UPS driver is scheduled to pick me back up on the eighth. He should deliver me back to the office by the ninth (assuming he’s not late like he was this time).
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.
If your request is urgent, please send your request to [contact name] at [contact email].
Readers, what do you like and hate in out-of-offices replies? Any stories of particularly off-key ones?
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].
And although my colleague had mixed feelings about her own parents joining that population in Florida, she couldn’t be too upset when her dad suggested flying down from Boston for a Red Sox spring training game.
I’m a huge fan of the scheduling. I give myself up until 8am the day I return, since that way I’m covered if someone is emailing me early in the morning and will know why it might take me a bit to get back to them as I sort through the backlog for triage even though I’m back in the office that day.
Providing estimated time to customers for getting responses is the first and foremost best practice to be followed by businesses. Usually, when customers know what the wait duration is, they are not very frustrated. Hence, setting clear expectations is crucial for delivering excellent service.
An out-of-office message is an effective way to inform people why you are not responding to their calls or messages and when they can expect a response. This information saves them from getting frustrated and avoids any negative impression from the inability to respond. If you have long-term relationships with your customers, such an auto-response system is highly significant as it avoids any inconvenience.
Picking the right words for you holiday out-of-office emails can seem like a proper “task”, particularly if you want to be both clear and polite with your message, while sprinkling it with usual phrases about the spirit of holidays. Yet, leaving your customers without this type of message is a big no-no, as it presents you as an unprofessional & sloppy equivalent of the notorious Ebenezer Scrooge. Thus, you need to fire up your email client and announce your absence with style by sticking to the following templates and tips.