“Hi, I’m Troy McClure!” We’re not sure who wrote the original Troy McClure out of office message, but this version by Paul Sokol of Infusionsoft is a real gem.
Having a professional automated message when you are busy enough to answer customer queries right away can set the right tone for your business and inform customers when they can expect to receive the response.
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I find it rude, as well. If someone is emailing you (the royal you), it’s because they need something. Saying you’re just going to delete it without also giving that person a Plan B contact is totally rude. It sucks having to go through emails, it does. But it’s part of the job. In my role, I get requests from internal colleagues and from external partners. Even though I provide those partners with an alternate email to send their requests, it’s still my responsibility to make sure that the requests that were sent to me in my absence were handled. Saying “everything I’m sent will be deleted” just Would Not Fly in my industry.
But that sounds boring, right? Luckily, there are ways to spice up your OOO message by adding humor in just the right places.
Once you’ve finally crossed off those last-minute items on your to-do list and are ready to check out of work mode for while, there’s just one last thing you need to do – set your out-of-office message.
Those of us who are back in the office haven’t bothered plugging most of the phones back in. We aren’t in roles where we get phone calls, those people are still mostly WFH. There is one persistant caller who does not seem to comprehend ‘X is working from home – please email them’, but that’s the only call we ever get.
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“You have reached [Sandy and Bill’s] voice mail. Please leave your message after the beep so we can call you back if we want to.”
Don’t know if those happen due to bad software, or a bad configuration decision, or just careless users, but those exhaust me.
I am currently out of the office on my holiday – I’m probably drunk somewhere in a bar in Spain. See you when I get back.
Uh… until when? Who should I contact in the meantime? Also, at the time of my emailing this person it was March, so I had to assume that OOO was from last year?! I finally learned that the person had left to another job. So many questions.
If the thought of me sight-seeing in Lisbon is making you feel a little blue here is a cat GIF to cheer you up.
Once I got an auto reply from a stakeholder on a project that said something to the effect of “Thanks for contacting me. Due to the large volume of email I receive, I don’t read them all. If I haven’t responded within 3 business days, please try again.”
Hi, I am out of the office for my annual year-end vacation and will not be able to check my mail until after the New Year. Have a Happy New Year!
Hi, I’ll be back on {MM/DD]. please contact [name] at [email] or [phone] if you really, really, really think it’s urgent. Otherwise, I’ll respond when I get back.
If you’re taking a vacation and staying home, your clients or coworkers may still expect you to pop into the office and answer their email. Use this autoresponder to let them know you’re really not available — even if you’re bumming around on the couch.
Additional resources: You might include a link to one of your webpages or a download if it provides information that can be useful to people while you are away.