Marketing Me! Out of office telephone rules

Out of the office for business or vacation means letting others know how to reach you by telephone.

I always leave the following greeting on my voice mail the day before I leave the office:

"Thank you for calling [My Name}. For the week of/day(s) of [Date] I will be traveling and away from my office.
Please leave a detailed message and best way to reach you. If this is urgent, you may contact me on my cellular phone
at [number]. If I am meeting with a customer, leave a message and I will call you back when available.
Thank you and have a great day"

On a related note, it drives me crazy when a business programs its phone system with a recorded message directing callers to either send an email or visit a website.

When someone uses the telephone, they want to speak with a person! Give them the means to do so!

Vacation

Just returned from somewhat of a vacation.

Despite my best efforts, I spent more than half of my time working rather than resting, relaxing and spending time with my family.

I set up an autoresponder on my work email "I am out of the office until March 1. I will respond to email when I return or as time allows".

I changed my voice mail greeting "I am out of the office until March 1. I will not be checking messages during this time, but will do so and return your call by March 2".

Neither was effective. My customers called my cellular frequently. And being trained as a modern twenty first century person that I am, I picked up each call without hesitation. After all, that is why we are connected, right?

Wrong. All in all, out of four days of non-drive time vacation, I spent about one and half days working. My bad and my fault.

My wife and kids had a swell time, but they missed me and I missed out.

I will not do that again.

I still have this weekend left, but I know how much work I have to catch up on. So we will see how that goes.




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