Be aware of your tone. Keep it clean and simple. Sullivan says: “Even if you work in a casual office environment, the people emailing you may not. It's fine to have a light tone in your communications, especially when you're in an email conversation with someone directly, but your OOO is more of a blast message—including a cat meme or silly quote could backfire if your OOO goes to, say, a new client prospect or the sales director at a company you've been trying to engage.”
Thanks for your email. I’m currently offline, returning on [date]. I’ll respond to your message then.
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One of my favorite OOO messages I ever received was from a customer who was a barrister or soliciter (not sure the right term for an English lawyer). It said he would be unavailable because he is “on trial.”
In all seriousness, you've probably ended up here because you were looking for some inspiration on your out of office message. You saw that they can range from funny to outright sales-y to a serious teaching moment. There's a few other things we want to make sure you don't leave out of your next out of office reply. Here's our three rules for scratching out that next OOO:
Here are some suggestions for what you should always include in your auto-reply emails when you are out of the office:
Hi, I am currently out of the office until [MM/DD]. I will reply to emails as soon as I can upon my return. If this is urgent, please contact [name] at [email] or [phone]. In the meantime, check out this new [product/sale/service/etc]. I can answer any questions about it for you when I get back.
Front makes it easy to save vacation responders and turn them on and off. If you're not on Front (yet!) here's how to save one in Gmail or Outlook. Then just copy your message into your vacation responder, rest assured your emails will get a response, and hit that glorious "Sign out" button.
Hi there, Thank you for reaching out! We are currently in the middle of our busy season so our reply may be delayed up to three days. We appreciate your patience while we look into this for you! Thank you.
An out of office message is important because it let's you keep people informed and tells them how to proceed in your absence. The Out of Office message for Social Media is cool. I can really include this on my Chat Bot now. Thanks for sharing it Christin.
Check out how easy it is to set up this essential process with your email account in this video I’ve posted to my YouTube channel.
Ann Handley is one of the renowned digital marketers who is also known for her sense of humor. In the below auto-response, she has sprinkled some clever creativity, personalization, and warmth instead of the two-line cold replies that we see almost everywhere. This can surely be an inspiration for anyone willing to catch the reader’s attention and make them smile even while away.
Both your customers and your employees need to know how long your business will be shut down for the holidays. Provide notice well in advance. Depending on the types of services you offer, you may need to start notifying customers as early as a month out. It would be best if you were to provide these important notifications at least two weeks before the holiday shutdown. Employees should also be reminded regularly that the company will not be open during those important days.
This. I’m surprised more people dont havent mentioned this, but this has always been my back to work routine – and sometimes if vacations overlapped, I’d find a summary email of “While you were away, X,Y,Z happened, I covered A, but you might want to check on B and C” which was always very helpful.
My favorite one that I’ve heard is from TV. “You’ve reached {name}. I can’t answer. Don’t waste my time.”
I was recently on the receiving end of a very perplexing out of office message. It simply said, “I am currently out of the office.” No indication of when they would be back or who to contact in the meantime. Fortunately in my case this was someone I cc’ed on an email as an FYI and did not need any response from, but still–who does that? IMO a good out of office message says how long you’re out and who to contact in the interim if things can’t wait, no more and no less.
Thank you for your email. I’m out of the office and into the cookies and eggnog right now. I’m celebrating the holidays with my loved ones and will not be checking my email until [return date].
My pet peeve is OOOs for the afternoon/an appointment when the person who set it up is NOT good at responding to emails in a timely fashion. If someone usually requires multiple reminders and follow up emails for me to get a reply to an email after 2 weeks, I don’t really need a notification that their responses will be delayed an hour until they get back from the doctor. It makes me think “who are you responding to that quickly, and why can’t you reply to me that fast??”