It was just this colleague – it (thankfully) wasn’t the culture of the office, and I never saw anyone else abuse the OOO like this.
As CEO of a company, it is customary to send out organization-wide holiday wishes to all employees. If you are feeling stumped on what to say, check out these warm holiday greetings that you can send to your team.
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Please accept our apology for the inconvenience this may cause. We are thankful for your understanding.
Of course, every message sends a message, even a barebones OOO that seems to say nothing more than that you’re away until next week, so why not try to inject a little personality? You could get quirky by giving your auto-responder robot a personality. You could dispense with words altogether and substitute a gif or emojis. Or how about a little retro concrete poetry – you know, where you arrange your words on the screen to form an image of a palm tree or a pina colada? It might be worth noting here that the amount of personality you inject depends on your trade. What earns you cachet in the creative industries might backfire in the financial sector, for instance.
Here are some examples of effective text for out of office messages you can use to keep your clients notified of your absence and unavailability during a holiday.
I hate the overshare. It drives me nuts. I’ve seen a lot lately that say essentially “After this crazy year I’m spending some much needed quality family time with Jane and the kids doing abc.” yada yada yada. It seems like overkill and way too familiar. You’re spending time with your family-that’s not noteworthy. Just say I’m out this date though this date. Contact person if you have something urgent.
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If you’re out for the day, I think you literally just need to say “I’m not in the office today, but I’ll respond to your message as soon as I’m back.” If people need an answer to something today, they’re smart enough to figure out they need to ask somebody else.
That’s just sloppy. We always check who will be available, because usually someone is. We also have a service address, and usually use that for OOO–messages. Then the ones working are responsible for those messages. That said, in my branch nobody seriously awaits an answer in July, but I’m in academica.
Before I implemented this system, I got *way* too many calls asking if so-and-so was out of the office that day when an OOO tells them that Bob will be back in three hours and to call Sue in the interim. The OOOs have reduced status check calls to practically zero, and the OOO preview pops up in our system as soon someone’s email is entered.
The vice-chancellor of [X] University is extremely pleased to announce the winter vacations from the 25th of December to the 6th of January 20XX. All the offices of the University Campus enclosed for the said period. Have a safe holiday and enjoy the break.
9. Auto Reply Example with Alternative Contact Phone and Email. [Your Greeting] Thank you for your email. Unfortunately, I am out of the office until (Return Date).
Amen. I have a co-worker who’s out of office message is always “spending time with my kiddos.” I don’t care. Just tell me who to contact and/or when you’ll be back.
The following phrases will be very useful when you’re preparing your out-of-office message template. To say you will be absent I will be out of the office. I am not in the office. I am (currently) out of the office. I will be away from X to Y. To redirect the message Should the matter be important… If you require immediate assistance… For urgent queries… If you have an immediate need… …please email X. …please contact X. …please write to/call X.
I’ve named the conference I was attending a couple of times in my out of office. That particular conference is a big enough deal in my field that some of the people emailing me were probably also in attendance, which made it worth specifying, in addition to setting expectations about email response times and overall availability.
The call handling menus will operate according to the opening and closing hours of your business as well as the hours specified in any holidays or exceptions you have added to your schedule. You can create multiple schedules, so make sure the one you choose or create has the correct time zone and holidays listed before you proceed.
Found it! (Reddit’s own search functionality is garbage, but it’s so easy to google for reddit posts, thankfully)