Most companies rely heavily on email to communicate with clients and many are now concentrating their efforts on improving customer service at all levels of the business.

For many organisations, email is the main method of first contact from prospective clients or customers – the aim – to maximise each opportunity which is key to their continued success in a very competitive marketplace and tough economic times.

By undertaking customer service research some companies have discovered that opportunities can be lost – sometimes due to staff being out of the office and therefore not responding to incoming enquiries quickly enough. Emails concerning information vital to sales or customer service can sometimes not be actioned effectively.

Emailogic have devised some simple rules to apply when staff are out of the office or not available to their clients for whatever reason.

• Discuss and devise a standard Out of Office template – use as standard to cover both internal and external emails
• Set a time and date for this template to be introduced Company-wide
• Activate standard rules to manage messages from new customers when out of office – for example an email from certain sources are automatically forwarded to a specific person.
• Ask the IT Department for support in setting these up if required
• Instigate a mandated training programme to ensure ‘all hands’ are bought into the target of increasing revenue from new customer emails
• Ensure that PAs and support staff are well briefed to support their bosses on setting up and making sure the
• company’s approved Out of Office message is used EVERY time
• Measure the success

Emailogic would suggest the following basic Out of Office template;