1) Communicate when a person will be back, or if they are out for an indeterminate period of time, tell me who I should be contacting instead 2) Communicate what I should expect. (For example, when I do my monthly reports, I have an out of office message that says that I’ll be slow to respond. I *will* actually check my email at least a couple of times, but I generally won’t respond to anything non-urgent.) 3) If the person is in a job that handles urgent requests, list who I need to contact instead if it can’t wait until they get back.
The dialogue “You may remember me from..” by Troy McClure is uncannily iconic for all Simpsons fans. It has also evolved into an autoresponder saga. By the time the reader realizes that they are going to wait a while, they would have already had the fun of reading this hilarious convo. Have a look at this funny out of office reply and see if your associates would love to hear it:
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Actually, it isn’t working other than when I am driving. I’ve contacted AT&T, and Apple today. It won’t just set as an auto reply whenever it is needed. I have clients texting me right now after hours and it is so stressful when I am trying to decompress and get away from the work day at night. Do you have any tips?? HELP!!
If you need super-urgent assistance, you are more than welcome to parachute onto the island and meet me on the beach! If that isn’t possible, please contact Jane Smith at [email protected] or 971-314-6323.
Probably a lot of overlap with the same type of person who feels the need to justify every sick day to all their coworkers, like they’re afraid of being judged for being absent. (Yes thank you Jane I don’t care that you were up half the night with a plumbing issue, you don’t need to convince me that you’re tired enough to take the day off)
Website: https://futureofworking.com/10-good-vacation-auto-reply-message-sample/
If their message is urgent or they’d like to contact someone else instead, you can let them know what to do.
Website: https://community.cisco.com/t5/ip-telephony-and-phones/activating-closed-or-holiday-greetings-during-business-hours/td-p/2460502
For all support requests/needs, please reach out to [email protected] and one of my colleagues will be happy to assist you.
The problem with that is people just don’t look at your signature. Whereas they are reasonably likely to notice the OOO message in the email subject header.
What are holiday out of office messages? Holiday out of office replies are automated email messages that professionals use to let others know they cannot respond due to being on vacation during a holiday. These messages typically include: An apology for the inconvenience
Website: https://blog.exclaimer.com/announce-your-christmas-opening-hours-in-your-email-signature/
Website: https://newoldstamp.com/blog/best-ideas-of-easter-banners-for-email-signature/
There was a lot of pushback on this, discussion about how big a risk was that really anyway, people saying that John could word his out of office in such a way that people didn’t have to know he was actually away, and if something really was an emergency people would like to know that they have the opportunity to “direct queries to Sam or Dean” so they could be actioned, or make the judgement call that something could wait for John to return.
The appropriate tone depends on the holiday. If you’re closing for Christmas or New Year’s, it’s safe to assume your customers expect you to be festive and maybe even humorous. Conversely, if you’re closed for Veterans’ day, your email should strike a more serious chord. Use our templates and double-check your tone before you hit send.
Because you can never predict when an emergency will come up, make sure you have someone who can resond to urgent requests. And that person would be your direct manager. But let them know ahead of time so they're not blindsided when they need to respond to something.
It got bad enough that others began begging someone to cull the list. Reply all, of course (thankfully it didn’t turn into an explosion of replies all). Someone finally did remove the email from the list.