If you work in an international setting, you should eventually prepare an out-of-office message in English to notify people of your absence and tell the recipient who to contact in case they need an immediate response.
“No matter what your best intentions, you're going to get bogged down the minute you return to the office,” Sullivan says. “Don't set exact timeframes for responding to messages in your OOO. Instead, set general expectations for‘I'll respond as quickly as possible upon my return,’ giving you some leeway.”
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Thank you for your email. I’m away from my desk until [return date] trying to corral my kids between family visits and holiday sugar highs.
Having a professional automated message when you are busy enough to answer customer queries right away can set the right tone for your business and inform customers when they can expect to receive the response.
The tone of your out-of-office auto-reply may vary depending on the intended recipient of your email.
A. Yes; however, Rocket Wireless will have very limited hours during winter break, with no in-person hours. Please call Rocket Wireless at 419.530.4807 or send an email; responses will be made only during half of the day (or two) after Christmas Day.
What Should Your Vacation Message Include?A subject, with the dates you leave and returnWho to contact in an emergency (name, email, and phone number)Point of contact for non-urgent inquiries (name, email, and phone number)Keep Your Message Professional
I am currently on travel in Ethiopia. If you’d like to contact me, please write to me in Ethiopian (Amharic).
People also hate it when some people sign “Sincerely,” but also a bunch of people hate “Thanks” and “Best” and “Toodles” — almost any signature you pick someone will hate. This is one of those areas of language that feels really subjective and culturally dependent and also…isn’t that big of a deal?
My favorite OOO to set is something like this: “I’m at sea from X to Y with very limited bandwidth. I’ll reply to urgent emails as soon as possible (but there may be a delay); if you don’t hear back from me by Z, please resend you message.”
Thank you so much for your email. I love it already. It’s wrapped so nicely in its charming subject line that I just knew this message was going to be something special. Gifts like these just don’t come around every day.
One of the most common mistakes people make when setting up their auto replies is making them long. Nobody wants to read a long email message — and especially so when it’s an email message that tells them you’re not going to reply right now.
Of course, managing a minute and a half response time isn’t so easily accomplished when you’re out of office, receiving hundreds of texts each hour, or shifting your attention to a different project.
Hi, I’ll be back on {MM/DD]. please contact [name] at [email] or [phone] if you really, really, really think it’s urgent. Otherwise, I’ll respond when I get back.
Written by Braden Becker @BradenBecker
If your auto reply messages give customers the ‘what next’ picture it will make customers feel that you as a brand can visualize their problem by putting in their shoes.
It isn’t hard to write an out of office message. And it’s less important than learning how to write a great follow up or understanding what makes a killer subject line. But that’s just the reason why a lot of people usually underestimate what an out of office message can achieve.