Oh my gosh, this is funny! It does sound kinda like, “some things are more important than work, JAN.”
We had someone today that sent an inquiry about something (this person is not a client, more of an outside business partner). Dude sent, within about an hour and a half time frame, 7 emails. Calling out one person on the DL multiple times within a half hour, then proceeding to call out the rest of the DLs (ALL in the original copy list) to try to get an answer to his question.
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6.) Bienvenue chez John Doe. Notre service téléphonique n’est pas occupé pendant les vacances. Les heures d’ouvertures peuvent être trouvés sur notre site www.johndoe.de. Nous vous remercions pour votre confiance et nous vous souhaitons d’agréables vacances et une bonne nouvelle année.
The best voicemail greeting I’ve ever encountered went like this: “If you’re hearing this message, please hang up and send me a text. I haven’t checked my voicemail since 2010.” And true to form, the mailbox was full and not accepting messages at that time. I appreciated her honesty!
Readers, what do you like and hate in out-of-offices replies? Any stories of particularly off-key ones?
Live support will be unavailable during our closure. Emergency support requests should be submitted via our contact form or via Basecamp if your project is currently active. We wish all of our clients a very happy and safe 4th of July holiday. We look forward to working with you when we get back from a well deserved long weekend. See you next week!
But I'm someone who has co-workers in almost every time zone, on almost every continent, and in almost every geographic region, and I simply can't imagine using most of these examples with co-workers in, say, South Korea or Japan or Nicaragua. Like, the account manager who reaches out to me for help accessing a particular system in Seoul doesn't need my personal story about why I'm taking time off and all the fun (or, for that matter, not fun) things that I'll be doing — they need help gaining access to [system] in order to complete the job tasks that have been assigned to them. If I am not available to help them, they need to know who can, and if there just *isn't* anyone else who can perform this task, they need to know when I will be able to.
You are under no obligation to share the reason for your absence. Even if you’re on parental leave, “on leave” or “out of the office” is sufficient. Unfortunately, discrimination against pregnant people and parents happens, and if you don’t want to disclose that you’re on parental leave, you don’t have to.
After all, a professional voicemail recording boosts your credibility, makes you seem more competent, and encourages whoever's listening to it to continue the relationship.
Careful. Holiday revelry and debauchery ahead. Proceed with caution (if you dare).
Not a big fan of this overly wordy version, but at least the OOM-writer gives you contact info for the people who might be able to help. My pet peeve is “I am out of the office until the 12th of never” with no indication of who might be able to help. But… we also have people who turn on their out of office while teleworking. WHAT?! You’re working. No one cares from where.
3. Suggest Reading the Documentation. This is the office closed for holiday template that our support team uses. If you have an extensive documentation published on your site, you can recommend users to read the documentation while you get back to your users.
Thank you for your email. I’m currently out of the office, returning on [return date].
7.) Bienvenido/a al bufete de abogados de John Doe. Lo sentimos, en estos momentos no podemos atender su llamada personalmente ya que está llamando durante nuestro período de vacaciones anuales. Puede enviarnos un correo electrónico a [email protected]. Le contactaremos lo antes posible a la vuelta. Para casos urgentes, por favor, contacte con el representante de nuestras oficinas. Puede encontrar dicha información en nuestra página web www.lawoffice-johndoe.de. Muchísimas gracias por su llamada. Hasta pronto.
You can set the ‘favourites’ phone calls to pass through the DND but does this also apply to their text messages or only their phone calls?
It usually isn’t enough to just say you’re out and won’t be responding to messages. You’ve got to give people options for how they can get their issue or request resolved. One of the easiest wins here is to provide alternative contact information. That could mean providing your mobile number while you’re out, or, more commonly, providing the phone number and email of the colleague (or department) that will be covering while you’re away.
The other being I did it once at my current job, pointed them to my boss, and he called me every time someone reached out to him. It was SUPER annoying, because not a single thing was time sensitive or really even remotely important, and if I hadn’t given a contact person they would have just waited. But I’m really the only person that does that I do, so when I’m gone, they just have to wait. :shrug: