As with a regular cold email, the best way to utilize your out of office message is to offer something of value to your client. So if you’re taking a vacation right after the launch of your newest feature or after finishing up on that huge blog post, linking to them may prove to be a very good idea. Explain why that content is useful and the person who contacted you about their thoughts.
This article originally appeared on The Daily Muse and is reprinted with permission.
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I have a coworker who has an “always-on” autoreply stating that she “is busy with client meetings during the day” and therefore only checks emails at 9am and 3pm. I understand wanting to set the expectation that people won’t get an immediate response, but it really baffles me. If you are still able to respond within 24 hours, why does anyone need this information? To me it feels like some weird self-help tip or power move that they read somewhere that serves no actual function.
You can show just how thrilled you are about your vacation while still providing an apology (of sorts... not really).
Oh my gosh, yes! This also drives me crazy. The game of emailing 15 people because they are all out and pointing to each other as their back up. Infuriating.
If you’re traveling to a remote, mountainous area, why not jab some fun at your lack of WiFi in your autoresponder? Plus, that makes it less likely that people will expect an immediate response or continue to email you after the first try.
I don’t include this much detail on my OOO, but I do include if I am out of the office for religious observance, because I don’t use electronics on my holidays and want people to know that I really won’t get their message until the holiday is over. (Unlike the norm in my workplace that otherwise senior people are checking email even if we’re sick or on vacation. I know, I know.)
I deal with this all day. I feel like some property management companies make their managers announce when they’re going to use the bathroom via auto-reply.
Voice mail is a strictly worse medium than almost any alternative. You don’t get the opportunity to converse and ask questions back and forth like you do with a phone call; you can’t extract information efficiently from the message like you can with an email (the old “ugh, I have to listen to this entire message over again just to check one thing he said at the end” scenario).
Don’t beat around the bush! This is an expression that means you should get to the point. That is, you should make your message direct and brief. This will let the recipient quickly know that you’re not available and who they can contact instead. You can start with a simple greeting and then proceed to the message like in the following examples:
Salem, Oregon 97301 503-370-6300 [email protected] Facebook Instagram Tiktok Linkedin Youtube Twitter Snapchat ABOUT US RESOURCES EVENTS CLIENT LOGIN SCHEDULE FREE CONSULTATION By: Total Computer Solutions
Braden also recommends using HubSpot's out-of-office email generator to create your OOO message.
'I’m away from my desk at the moment but will respond the moment they give me a desk' (Credit: Getty Images)
Thanks for your email. I will be away from the office until September 13th and will respond as soon as I can.
I had a coworker once who hated it when she got somebody’s out of office message. I asked her why it got her so bent out of shape. “Because then I have to wait until they get back to send the message again!”
Holiday / Vacation Message Examples, Script Ideas - Business: It is often used for Christmas/New Year and Easter. But it can also be used for normal holidays or vacation periods. 1.) Welcome to John Doe. Our telephone hotline is not occupied over the holidays.
Unfortunately I didn’t save it, but I once received of office reply that included a synopsis of the “comedic novel” they were working on during their time off.