COLOMBO : It tickled me thoroughly to receive an out of office email bang in the middle of the first week of October from a party in USA stating that she is on leave in June. Since this happened hot on the heels of my etiquette article titled ‘Out of Office? Please Say So‘, I thought I should jot down some such common mistakes that could cost us dearly from a professional angle and an etiquette point of view.
01.Getting the Dates Wrong
This happens when you reuse what you saved when you went on leave last year. Being consistent is good, but read your message before you activate the auto responder. I am still wondering when my counterpart in USA will return to work – sigh!
02.Typo in the Alternate Party’s Contact Details
In your haste to set up the auto responder, if you get one digit wrong in a number or one letter wrong in an email address, the entire purpose would be lost. Verify it before you hit save and thereby, save a lot of people a lot of trouble while you are away.
If you need to add someone quite senior, it would be a good idea to include the designations of the alternate contact points to avoid people calling such people for mundane clarifications. Just imagine the boss’s face when he receives a call from a supplier who wants to know about his payment.
03.Not Testing Whether it Works
Got the facts and figures right, but forgot to check whether it actually works, eh? Two hours into your holiday, you will receive calls from irate colleagues who have not received responses to urgent mails – not a glorious start to a holiday if you ask me.
There are settings to specify the date and time at which the auto responder should come on and go off; they were created for a reason – use them!
04.Forgetting to Knock it Off
Starting off from where I stopped in the previous bullet point; if you don’t set up the end time as you activate the auto responder, you run the risk of sending automated replies even after you are back at work. It really confuses recipients as it carries a date of the past as the last date of unavailability but gets triggered nevertheless. You could have blood hounds circling you on the streets if people get worried about your prolonged absence.
Attention to detail is an important trait in the corporate world. Reinforce your personal brand by knowing the etiquette and practising it meticulously with a tad bit of help from us at Full of Etiquette. Write to us at fullofetiquette@gmail.com for details and clarifications.
Till I return with ‘Full of Etiquette’ next week, stay safe!
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Praveeni Jayasekera is the Founder and Editor of fullofetiquette.com; she is a regular advocate on the subject. She is an ACMA, CGMA; holds a BSc. Economics and Management; PG in IT and Diploma in Social Sciences. She is employed full time in the capacity of Chief Operating Officer at CL Synergy (Private) Limited; a Sri Lankan freight forwarding company. She is an ardent fan of the written word and has compiled content for numerous websites for search engine optimization (SEO) purposes, corporate profiles and blogs. She has experience in training corporate professionals on customer service and business etiquette. She conducts coaching sessions on etiquette for school children every now and then.
