On Vacation? Take Care of Your Customers Anyway

It's that time of year where people go on vacation and set their email auto-responders and voicemail messages to reflect their absence.

Remember that marketing is how we interact with our customers and clients; not just prior to selling them on the products or services that we provide, but even the customer service after the sale.

The reason I bring this up is because I receive a lot of "out of office" email replies when my newsletter goes out and I think this is something that needs to be addressed. It is proper etiquette to tell customers, colleagues and vendors that you are out of the office, but it's not ok to use a message the resembles the following:

"If you are contacting me on a personal matter (and this is not an email list), please direct your correspondence to me at remain_name_less@email.com. But only for personal matters. Thank you!"