PS: We love our downtime and here at HAR, we're big believers everyone needs a vacay from work. Yes, even you—the social media junkies, the workaholics, the entrepreneurial diehards who accidentally (or "accidentally") take their smartphone into the shower.
Informal approach helps your clients think of you as of a human being. This alleviates some of the annoyance they may feel because of not receiving a proper reply. Generally, making people laugh is a great way to make people remember you. Do that and your clients won’t switch to a competitor.
.
Hi, You just missed me. I am out of the office until [MM/DD]. If your question can wait, great. I’ll reply when I get back. If not, contact [name] at [email] or [phone] and they’ll take good care of you. Meanwhile, feel free to peruse our FAQ section of [website] to see if your question can’t be answered there.
I believe that it’s happened more than once. This news items includes a video with some other examples – ‘Wine and ghosts ‘ is my personal favourite. https://www.walesonline.co.uk/news/wales-news/man-responsible-welsh-translation-gaffe-15214716
Hey, I was looking for useful information on iPads and just came across your blog and found it quite interesting, can’t wait to see your new post. You’ve been sharing really insightful posts and I’m an avid reader of your posts. Keep sharing the knowledge and adding value to our lives.
My boss requires us to put a nightly OOO message up, and I HATE it. I pushed back on it for months at first, because people know and understand that the reason no one is responding at 8pm is because the business is closed (or at least, they should understand that…). It wasn’t worth the fight, my boss thinks it’s so important, so I caved and just turn on the message every night. I think it makes us look immature and like we don’t understand business norms, but it’s not the hill I’m willing to die on.
Too little info is frankly worse, IMO. All you need for an OOO is date you are coming back, and who to contact in your absence if it can’t wait for your return. If it doesn’t have that, why bother having one at all?
My department still doesn’t allow us to send OOO auto-replies to external recipients because of one incident years ago (a customer tried to contact a sales rep about an urgent order, got the rep’s auto-reply, and in their ensuing panic, somehow got escalated all the way up to the company president). Any external emails we get are auto-forwarded to a centralized mailbox and (ostensibly) handled by another rep while we are out. It bothers me to know that my external contacts won’t get a reponse from me while I’m out and may think I’m just ignoring them.
In my world, “please contact $Manager” is recognition of a staffing level problem. $Manager will have to decide what project to defer if a crisis comes up while someone is OOO.
Did you look at the comments on the TikTok? Because the overwhelming majority love it and are asking if her company is hiring. So it doesn’t seem like most people find it condescending even in video form.
If a customer is new to your text program, be sure to send them an automated welcome message upon opt-in! Welcome to Barracuda Resorts VIP club! My name is Joy, your personal concierge. If you need anything during your stay please let me know!
Yes! I HATE the voicemails that are like “can you give me a call back?” Like… give me some context so you can end up on my to-do list in the right place. People who leave these voicemails automatically go on the bottom.
Share News Tips SecurelyIndividual SubscriptionsGroup SubscriptionsRepublishingContracts & TendersExecutive Job SearchAdvertise with the FTFollow the FT on TwitterFT TransactSecondary Schools
I do find the above quite amusing, but it would never fly at my place of work! lol!
I will be away from (Date) until (Return Date). For urgent matters, you can contact (Contact Person).
Ha reminds me of an admin here once who would leave like 10 bullet points on who to contact for what. We got a kick out of the point that was “for catering emergencies…contact…”.
Okay. So, it’s not to my exact personal tastes — to me, it’s overly wordy — but it’s probably fine for their culture and I’d be mildly amused if I got it. I see where you’re seeing condescension, but I think you can read it without that too.