Additionally, auto-reply messages are something spam senders welcome with open hands. When they send messages to thousands of random email boxes, if those spammers receive auto-replies, they will know for sure which of those email addresses actually exist.
We are having a temporary office move soon, and our head of facilities was delighted he didn’t need to find data ports for the phones as well as the PCs ;)
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There is any number of valid reasons why you might skip on your email inbox for a while. You can be on vacation, feel sick or take a few days off to recharge.
My European colleagues get an extended summer holiday all at the same time, which means we get OOO notes like this:
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(Aside: at my job, when you open a new browser window, a random picture of employee pets pops up. It changes every time. I could just refresh all day long.)
Additionally, you can reference a person in charge of your business while you are way:
You have to manually turn on DND mode from Control Panel. The iPhone will start to send the auto-reply to incoming messages and calls.
Every holiday, we customize our voicemail for relevance to the theme and season. This Thanksgiving, the message is this: “Thank you for calling. We are currently closed in observance of Thanksgiving. We’re unable to attend your call today, but we promise to get back to you if you would kindly leave your name and contact details on record.
Of course, I had one POTENTIAL cient who got the “I’m in court and can’t call you back” repeatedly calling and demanding to know why I wasn’t calling him back. Like “I;m IN COURT DUDE. The JUDGE takes precedence over you.” He really expected me to tell the judge to take a recesss so I could call him back. I eventually got back to him with an email “I think you might be better off with another attorney.”
I would say that "best of luck" would refer to something more specific, Whereas "All the best" is a generic well-wishing.
This is what I’ve seen most often in my career. Problem is, the contact is almost always the admin. I’m the admin. Everyone’s idea of assistance is different. Often, I didn’t have the knowledge about the issue in order to be of any assistance. I wound up spending more time running around looking for answers than actually working on what was on my own plate. It’s exhausting. Otherwise known as “please don’t call us for unicorn problems when we handle llamas. Literally, we can’t do anything for unicorn problems.”
Something like, “I will not have access to email while I am out and will get back to you when I return. If your issue is urgent, please resend your email after X date,” would be… more polite, I guess.
Dear Customer, Please note that on [day], [date], is [holiday name]. The store will be closed all day and will open again at [time] on [Day]. Enjoy the holiday. Regards [Company name]
Thanks for your email. I’m currently on holiday with my family for the first time in what seems like forever. For urgent matters, [NAME] will help you. She doesn’t have a cape, but she is basically Superwoman. See you real soon. (Source: Futureofworking.com)
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I’ll be back on [DAY OF WEEK], [DATE]. No explanations, no apologies, no promises to respond, no redirects to other colleagues. It works.