Out of Office Protocols For Quality Customer Service

It is important to have correct referral information available to internal and external customers who may call or e-mail staff members during absences. Considering upcoming holidays and leave/vacation schedules, this is a good time to review the steps we all need to take prior to being out of the office. 

Change Gmail Vacation Responder (Out-of-Office message) (sample below) 

• Thank you for contacting Heartland AEA. I will be out of the office until January 2. If you need immediate assistance, please contact Sally Smith at ssmith@heartlandaea.org or ext. XXXXX. Thank you. 
• To turn on a vacation responder message, go to the gear-shaped icon in the top right corner of Gmail. Scroll down to and then click on Settings. Click on the first link that says general and scroll down until you see the information for “Vacation responder.” Click the button next to Vacation responder on and then enter your message in the space provided. You have the option to set the time when your message will begin and end. Click Save Changes at the bottom of the page when you are finished. 

Tips: If you use your out-of-office email reply for every little thing, people might just stop reading it. It’s not customer focused, it’s ME focused. Use your out-of-office email response only in the instances you’ll truly be unresponsive for an extended period of time—like vacation. The customer will actually read it because they haven’t gotten multiple iterations of your bounce-back email on a continuous basis. Be clear and concise about when you’ll be responding, and leave out the personal information about where you are going and why. 

Change Voicemail Greeting to Unavailable (samples below) 

• Thank you for calling Heartland AEA. You have reached Sally Smith. I am currently out of the office until (date you return). If you need immediate assistance, please contact Jane Jones at extension XXXXX, otherwise leave your name and phone number and I will return your call when I am back in the office. Thank you. 
• You have reached Sally Smith at Heartland AEA. I am out of the office until (date you return). Please leave your name and phone number, and I will return your call when I am back in the office, or if you need immediate assistance, please press “0” and someone else will assist you. Thank you. (In this case, make sure that you have asked Tuan Dao to program your phone to zero out to the person who is covering for you.) 
• You have reached Sally Smith at Heartland AEA. This is the week of December 23 and our offices will be closed on December 24 and 25. I will be out of the office the entire week, however, if you need assistance you may contact Jane Jones at extension XXXXX. Otherwise I will return your call on December 30. Thank you. 

Tip: If you want to change your voicemail greeting from your home phone or cell phone, you may do so by calling either (515) 270-0405 or (515) 473-7450 and pressing # when you begin to hear the greeting. This gets you into your voicemail, and you can then follow the prompts to access your messages, change your voicemail greeting or set it to out of office if you are ill and want callers to get immediate help. Please be mindful not to refer a customer to another staff member who is also scheduled to be out of the office. Check with that person to make sure he or she will be available and aware that you are forwarding customers and/or staff members to them during your absence. 

Change Employee Dashboard to “Out of Office” 
On your Employee Dashboard home page in the upper left under “Workflow Tasklist” is a box to click when you are out of the office. This enables any workflows to go to the secondary approver when you are set to out of office. This is important if you do purchase requests, so they don’t sit on your tasklist while you are absent.