PowerTips | Remodelers Advantage: Every single touch with another human being is an opportunity for your company to shine. It’s a chance to differentiate yourself from the competition. And the out-of-office reply is the single most overlooked opportunity a remodeler has to be remarkable.
Now, the amount of mileage you can get on this will certainly vary. If you’re new to our community you’re (hopefully) getting at least one week away per year. But for some (like many of our Roundtables™ members) you’re taking three to six weeks of vacation per year.
Whichever applies to you, one thing we demand of everyone is that you unplug completely. Don’t reply to emails. Don’t even check your email. Let your team handle it.
18 comments:
I question the response that this worker's reply email really got. Some parts of it seem quite rude and I could see some individuals actually getting offended after reading that. While I agree that it's terribly awful to be robotic in your automatic replies and even in your everyday emails (which I'll admit that I'm guilty of), but his urgent email section seemed just a bit too much. Maybe there's a more informal sense that comes along in the future once you've actually been working with a family that I haven't developed yet, but it just seems as though there were more positive or more subtle ways to go about this.
I think this is a cute idea with some definite positive aspects, but I do feel it's only applicable to certain situations. The sample email is sweet and funny, but only in certain contexts. I feel like it would be perfect if you were some kind of an assistant at a neighborhood locally-owned, all-organic fair-trade home bath products company, but wildly inappropriate if you were a high-level executive in a software company, or really a person of real authority in any decently sized organization. To me the "stopspendingtimewithyourkids@mycompany" email address just seems extremely passive agressive, although the intention may have been to be funny. An alternate email address such as something along the lines of "emergency@mycompany" would have the same dissuading effect without coming off as condescending or passive-aggressive. Other than that, the article does have some good tips, such as padding the date you'll be back to give yourself some time to actually sort through all the emails, or customizing the subject line to make it more personal. Overall, this article seems like it's geared towards people that don't have to be extremely concerned with always appearing professional and watching their behavior.
I never really thought about changing the autoresponder before, though I do love the idea. The author definitely has some really good points in the article such as changing the subject line, if possible, and writing a more personal message. I also love the idea of including a "gift" with the message. However, I do agree with Sam & Sarah when it comes to the emergency address, I'd probably setup something like arakla.alert@andrew as opposed to "StopSpendingTimeWith...". That just seems waaaay too long and rude.
This article has some really good advice about how not to sound robotic. I can even think of ways to apply this to any email I send, not just an automatic one. I like the suggestions for changing the subject like.
I agree with everyone else about the emergency email address. It actually took me a few read-throughs of the address to understand what he was trying to be funny about. It does give you a guilt-trip about thinning about emailing him about an emergency, but if it really is an emergency, I would feel super bad for bugging him. Which I guess is the point, but it's excessive and rude. The same effect could be achieved if the email was something like realemergencies@mycompany, but without the guilt-trip of pulling you away from your family.
While the article may be a little too tongue in cheek, I do think that this is a really interesting aspect to creating a personal brand. While it seems small, little polite gestures do go a long way when interacting with people. I know I can get very nervous and turned off by people who are very serious and formal in online communication, so this extra layer of humanity seems like a great tool in the internet age. That being said, the example given is a little too cute. A person still needs to be professional, so perhaps a new balance needs to be struck. Don't go so far as a cheeky email address, but leave in the human dialogue. There is such a thing as too personable, and that example email was it.
The advice offered in this article is definitely very helpful to avoid turning people off with the standard away from work email. Making the email more personal helps the reader believe that you took the time to actually write a reply instead of simply checking the box that says "automatic reply" and running out the door. It shows how much thought was put into this, that is underscored by the custom email address.
And although he could have been a bit less sarcastic about it, the advice is still helpful for future business people.
Meh. I see the point, but the suggested response is borderline unprofessional in my opinion. I could see an auto-response like that working in a small startup or small business environment, but I don't know how favorable a larger corporate culture would receive an email crafted like that. Obviously not all companies are created equal, but I feel like that could be a issue, especially if you are just a cog in the machine, so to speak.
That being said, I do agree that the standard response is a little robotic. However, the suggested fix takes it a bit too far in the other direction.
I think this is only for smaller settings, although I would include most theaters in that group. Unless it is important, or looks like it might be, I believe most people tend to scan emails rather than read them all the way through. If someone is out of the office I don’t really need details so unless it is someone I actually know I am not really going to be interested in all the fluff. I couldn’t imagine using this in the corporate world where I would expect emails to be more conservative, especially if you are going to be sending / receiving emails to other businesses. Also to be fair it is a robot. If I get an automated reply I know it is from a robot. No one read my email and replied to it, a script somewhere saw that I sent an email and sent me a pre-written response. Nothing about that is human. I don’t want to sift through fluff to get what I need to know. The beauty of the standard out of the office and contact info if necessary reply is it gives me what I need without wasting my time.
I don't think it's very good customer service to make your clients feel guilty about sending you an email. I get what he's going for, but his tone just seems unnecessarily rude, as some other commenters have pointed out. Also, if you really are taking 6 weeks of vacation a year, such a memorable message could make clients feel like you're extra unavailable, since they'd remember your fancy message even though they'd be more likely to forget a more generic one.
There are some positive attributes to this article though. I like the idea of posting a short video or link to something cool as part of your message. Something like that wouldn't require anyone to take additional action but could be nice if they wanted to. One of the commenters on the article itself also suggested writing a short description of what you are doing while you're away from the office, which I thought was kind of nice. Ultimately though, I think a super special personal out-of-office email is pretty low on a client's priority list when it comes to customer service.
To be quite honest, this response seemed wholly unprofessional to be. Please forward emails to StopSpendingTimeWithYourKids? While I understand that the author is trying to drive the point home, I don't know any working professional who would be that offhand with their work email. This might be best suited for your personal email. That being said, I totally agree with Sarah that the alternate email title should be something along the lines of emergency@company.com. Reading the second email, I felt guilty for sending this guy an email. Personally, I prefer the automated response, because it's that; not personal. One part of this article that was useful to me was the addition of a few extra days to the day you get back so you have time to catch up. Now that's a practice I could actually use.
I feel a little ridiculous commenting on the logistics and manners of out of office emails, but here it is:
I can see parts of this being useful. The part about giving yourself a few extra days to respond is really interesting, and definitely I've never thought about. However, in most professional settings, emails can so easily come off as pretentious or rude in the first place, that being risky with some additional discourse added to something as silly as an automated out of office email could come off as well, even more pretentious and rude.
I found some of the advice in this article helpful, and I think it is definitely a good idea to have a more personal out of office email. However in some places I think the author really crossed the line. The shining example of this, as Sarah pointed out, is the "stopspendingtimewithyourkids@[yourcompany].com" email address. This is extremely passive aggressive and, while funny, fairly inappropriate in most business settings. I really hope that this article intentionally is tongue-in-cheek as Olivia suggested, but if it is sincere I really don't think the author would be a pleasant person to work with.
I felt that this article was being a bit dramatic; it is not the worst thing in the world to have a robotic out of the office message, nor is it going to change the way a customer views your company. It would be nice if you took the time to add a friendlier greeting and emergency contact information for yourself, but outside of that I don't think it is necessary to tell people where you are or try to entice them with a free offer or a funny video. In fact they might find that more unprofessional than anything else.
E-mails, text, and other forms of communication that are not directly heard from word of mouth are sometimes extremely difficult to manage. I feel that a lot of the time when I'm communicating with someone via text or e-mail, things get misconstrued, convoluted, or just misread. It sucks. Through simple text it is nearly impossible to convey tone or emotion unless you make it so plainly obvious which sometimes is okay and... Sometimes not. Being too much of anything in an e-mail can really turn people off and again misinterpret your original intention. Unfortunately this is the way that we choose to communicate for the ease of it, but nine times out of ten I would rather just call someone on the phone or talk to them in person.
I think that Mark Harari has a good point that a standard out of the office reply is not always the best thing to do. It is annoying when you receive one because you do not feel important to the person you are trying to contact and you need to wait awhile for a response. It is a good idea to make the auto-response more exciting and personal. The person receiving it will be more likely to be okay with the fact that you are on vacation. If you include something funny it will put them in a good mood while they are at work and not on vacation.
Recently having issues with our financial aid office on campus, I can attest to how frustrating it can be to have generic out of office replies, especially when you’re having an issues that you want resolved quickly. I don’t necessarily agree with the articles suggestion of making the email a little more “friendly” and providing a “gift” at the end.
When sending an irritated email, the last thing you want it to get a response with “Sorry, I forgot to mention that I’m on vacation” and then providing an emergency contact email with the intention of provoking guilt in any would-be future email.
I’d agree with the article that something more than the generic auto-response email is pleasing to a recipient, as well as providing an emergency contact (which is more than just the Main Office) as well as a return eta.
I don't think this article is very offensive. I think it's informational and true. In our world everyone is sending emails that are very straight forward and basic and they don't really care how people ready their email. But the thing about huge companies or someone who is contacted a lot, there needs to be way more to their simple email than "I will be out of the office until August 18th with limited access to email. If this is urgent, please contact John Doe at John@example .com or call (555) 555-5555." People should use the word sorry and actually tell people what's the purpose of your absence. Then your company feels more involved and aware of the circumstances. Yes it may take more time to type and the effort is KILLING you, but it's just an email. And if it's that difficulty or you're in a rush then save that email so you can use it for a default later with some minor tweaks.
Email communication is hard. This is because just like in reading a book all the audience receives is words on a page (or in this case a screen). They are not told how to react to these words like in a physical conversation. All they do is read the words. It is then up to them to determine how to feel. I can't begin to tell you how many times someone has sent me a nice email and I've added negative tones to it when reading it. I think if everyone slowed down when they read their email, and sometimes even read the whole email string, than this wouldn't happen. However, I'm interested to see how this develops as society becomes more technologically dependent.
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