We’ve certainly come a long way since the honeymoon days of You’ve Got Mail, the 1998 Meg Ryan romcom in which each new electronic missive set Tom Hanks’ heart fluttering (and vice versa). These days, in tech circles, you’ll hear tales of folk who’ve set their email servers up to automatically delete unread emails after a week – before going on holiday for a full fortnight. Others have reduced the OOO to a single word in the subject line: “Nope.”
Over time I’ve pared my OOO messages down more and more to the absolutely essential. The main issue was whether to use first or third person. Either is fine, but it comes up because it’s nice to have the name of the OOO person in front of one’s eyes if one sends a lot of email and then finds stray OOO messages among the mail … “hmm, what was THIS one in response to…?”. – “I am absent the office today and will attend to your message by Monday, August 17.” – “I am traveling during the week of Monday, July 1 and may be unable to respond to your message immediately. For issues concerning the [operational project in remote area], please contact [co-worker]” – “Tamarack Fireweed is on leave from [date] to [date] with reduced access to email. Urgent messages can be routed as follows: For project X, please contact [person1]. For project Y please contact [person2]. For questions about [academic program] please write to [general alias]. “
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But this is where it becomes a power thing. The OOO person says that everyone else wants stuff from them that the sender can’t get elsewhere and you need to grovel to get it from them.
When you’re trying to contact someone on a matter of importance (or even urgency) on one side of the equation and you find out via an autoresponder that they are away for vacation, it can be incredibly frustrating unless they’ve done the front-end work beforehand. (I’m speaking from personal – and recent – experience here. And worse, there was no auto-responder set up. I had to use the – gasp! – telephone to find out what was going on.)
The answer lies in writing an effective out-of-office message to help reduce the interruptions. “Let key people know you’ll be gone before you leave,” says Ivan Misner, founder of the global business network BNI and author of Who’s In Your Room? The Secret to Creating Your Best Life. “That will help reduce your email. Then craft an out-of-office message for everyone else.”
Thank you for your email. Unfortunately, I am currently out of the office and will not return until 3rd November.
4. You snooze, you lose! The [holiday name] sale will end soon. Even though holiday sales last for quite long, some of us still have trouble finding something special for themselves or their loved ones.
If your auto reply messages give customers the ‘what next’ picture it will make customers feel that you as a brand can visualize their problem by putting in their shoes.
The plan B is to send it again when they’re back though. I think there are a lot of situations where I emailed them and someone else from the start and someone else answered, or I found someone else in the 2 months span until they’re back, or did it myself, or it’s too late to help…. So it does help them avoid following up on things that don’t need following up on.
Forgetting to email holiday closing announcements is the best (or worst) way to get off your customer correspondence on the wrong foot. By doing it, on the other hand, you will leave solid impression of a professional who wants to stay on good terms with his/her customers, while showing respect for their role in mutually beneficial cooperation. Using templates can be of great help as a starting point for coming up with informative and stylistically consistent emails that will give you a peace of mind during the holiday season. https://blog.smoove.io/wp-content/uploads/2018/01/december-headers20.jpg 656 1167 smoove https://blog.smoove.io/wp-content/uploads/2017/02/logo.png smoove2018-01-16 14:46:532018-10-16 11:32:04Awesome Holiday Closing Announcement Email Templates How to Get Started with Social Media Marketing How to Attract Customers to Your Small Business All Blogs My Blogs Friends' Blogs All Blogs My Blogs Friends' Blogs Like 1
That’s why I instituted group email addresses/boxes for this use (I had to fight with IT to have one created in the early days). Yes, everyone has their individual email in addition to the group mailbox.
I think I started following that Tiktok account after this video and, if I recall correctly, the OOO writer is an SVP who is trying to reset a company culture that has very little work/life balance. I always liked it, but that background info made me love it that much more.
1) Communicate when a person will be back, or if they are out for an indeterminate period of time, tell me who I should be contacting instead 2) Communicate what I should expect. (For example, when I do my monthly reports, I have an out of office message that says that I’ll be slow to respond. I *will* actually check my email at least a couple of times, but I generally won’t respond to anything non-urgent.) 3) If the person is in a job that handles urgent requests, list who I need to contact instead if it can’t wait until they get back.
Website: https://www.slideshare.net/kirsty_wilson/7-ways-to-annonce-your-holiday-office-closure
If you are a customer still in onboarding, please reach out to your Data Migration Specialist, Jane Smith, at [email protected] or 971-314-6323.
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That really does feel excessive. I think most people are savvy enough to think, ‘Huh, it’s late in the day for pretzelgirl, I might not get a response until tomorrow. Business as usual.’ Being out of communication for a day – travel, meetings, days off – doesn’t require an out of the office alert, either, just a response as soon as possible.