Skip the "Greetings," "Salutations," "Dear sir/madam." These are far too stuffy and robotic. Instead, start off your response with a simple "Hi" or Hello."
I would be SUPER annoyed to get this! I agree it seems condescending and it’s just too long.
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Confirm your greeting is set for each day you are closed to play the “holiday” or “closed” greeting. Check your on-call option is working properly, when applicable.
The power of the right voicemail greeting is the caller actually staying on the line to leave that contact information or gain access to an alternative contact point. The bottom line is that a business’s situation is likely to change often and rapidly, each of which need a unique and applicable voicemail greeting to cover the circumstances
Remember to make sure your auto-reply has a limit to how often it sends replies to any one address. If they reply to every single email they recieve, they can cause problems: https://www.reddit.com/r/talesfromtechsupport/comments/420oan/companywide_email_30000_employees_autoresponders/ I actually had that happen while I was on vaca, a travel agency e-mailed me with an update about my vacation from a no-reply mail box and triggered my auto reply, which triggered their “This is not a monitored mailbox” auto reply to the tune of 80,000 messages in my mailbox. It completely filled up my “available” space, so everytime I logged in and thought I had them cleared out, more would pour in. It took DAYS to delete all of them.
11. "Hi, you've reached [company]. Unfortunately, we're currently unavailable. But we want to talk to you — so please leave your name and number, as well as your reason for calling, and someone will call back ASAP."
Are you always entertaining your colleagues with useless facts? That doesn’t need to stop just because you’re going on holidays.
4. You snooze, you lose! The [holiday name] sale will end soon. Even though holiday sales last for quite long, some of us still have trouble finding something special for themselves or their loved ones.
I have a colleague who directs people to email an alternative email alias when she’s on leave. This alternative email alias? Yup goes to her. Don’t know why she does it. She’s also set a rule in her team that they have to answer each others’ phones of someone is away from their desk. Inevitably, the person answering the phone can’t help and tells the caller to send an email. It drives me up the wall.
My new job provided a template OOO as part of the onboarding brand templates package! I’m sure it might seem like overkill to some, but I’ve had tons of nervous first-job employees ask me what theirs should say, so I loved that they just gave a sample to go from. Also goes a long way in communicating that unique office culture stuff that is usually unspoken/not formalized.
I say I am “away from my desk”, or “unavailable”. To indicate I am working, “I will be at my desk from xhour to yhour on xday”.
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
Every November without fail, when I take a week off for deer season, I start my OOO with “GONE HUNTIN’!”
9. Auto Reply Example with Alternative Contact Phone and Email. [Your Greeting] Thank you for your email. Unfortunately, I am out of the office until (Return Date).
Have you ever considered how your office design could be having a negative impact on the way your employees work?
Note: You can also set different automatic out of office replies for different people. Just click the Rules… button in the bottom-left corner and add a rule for each person or email subject.
If your request is urgent, don’t sit around. Send your request to [contact’s name] at [contact’s email].