Automated reply messages are predefined responses used to communicate with customers across specific scenarios and keep information transparent. It helps customers to understand what is actually happening – whether your agents are busy, out of the office, or on holidays.
Notice: Office hour of [company Name] during [holiday name] holidays the offices will remain open from : am to : pm. [company name] will be closed on [date] and resume operations on [date].
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Yes, I do like that option. I can either redirect off the cuff, or if the message isn’t urgent, delay delivery so they get it after they get back.
My coworker tends to set his OOO for people to contact me, but he never bothers to tell me he’s going to be out of town and people may be contacting me. I’ll find out when I happen to email him and get the response. Not a huge deal, but the heads up would be nice! What if I was also on vacation?
I can’t remember if this was just an outgoing voice message before routing you to an individual, or for a voicemail, but I remember a fun December phone message from a small company (I think an insurance agency) sung to the tune of a Christmas carol–something like Jingle Bells. The content was something like: you’ve reached our office during this holiday season, hope your holidays are happy, please 1) leave a message or 2) press X for who you want. Other than the tune, it wasn’t overly holiday-centric (for those who don’t celebrate the holidays) and it was cute.
"[Auto-attendants] assist a business of any size in presenting a more organized, efficient, and, if necessary, more robust picture of itself,” points out Brandi Armstrong, Co-Founder of Telecentrex and blogger on evancarmichael.com. The right greeting can make the difference between a frustrated customer or a satisfied one.
In spite of your best efforts to notify people ahead of time, not everyone will get the notification that you're going to be shut down. Make sure that you: Post signs about the shutdown and when you will be back Change your voicemail message and have a plan for what to do if your voicemail is full: will it notify you? Is there an alternate number to call? Put together an "out of office" email that lets people who attempt to contact you know when you will be back Make sure you have a call tree for emergencies, and that everyone knows who he or she will be responsible for calling in the event of an emergency
Setting up an effective out-of-office autoresponder may seem to be a simple task. However, there is nothing worse than receiving an automated response that is not clear or useful. You want your “out of office” message to provide useful information and clarify why you are not available now. You certainly want to avoid any confusion or frustration.
Seconded, with one exception: I got one once from a distant coworker which said “I have broken my arm in a kitten-related fall and will be out for (…)”. Everyone else uses boilerplate language so that one definitely stood out, but I thought it was the right level of mildly amusing.
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We sent a message from the Android phone to the iPhone number that has already been set in vacation settings. And finally, we received an auto-reply text from iPhone to the Android phone.
'I’m away from my desk at the moment but will respond the moment they give me a desk' (Credit: Getty Images)
That sounds like she’s using an auto-responder, not an Out of Office. The primary difference, as far as I can tell, is that an auto-response will respond to every email, whereas the OOO message will only reply once per sender when it’s turned on. (Turning it off and then back on resets it)
Don’t know if those happen due to bad software, or a bad configuration decision, or just careless users, but those exhaust me.
Very true, if the options came in reverse order (or maybe emergency first followed by not-urgent followed by urgent) that would be a little better.
Proof that some people just Don’t Get It: in response to my out of office voicemail message directing callers to contact my co-worker for anything urgent, a woman left the following message on MY voicemail: “Co-worker, I am having this issue, blah, blah, blah. Please call me at X.” Yeah, I–not co-worker–got the message a week later when I returned.
What I really hate is when I get back to the office and haven’t taken the 10 minutes to go into our labyrinthian voicemail system, remove the out of office voicemail message, and record a new one (without being interrupted, stuttering, etc.) and some SUPER DUPER HELPFUL person feels the need to InFoRm mE in their voicemail message that I sTiLl HaVe My OuT oF oFfIcE mEsSaGe Up!!!1!