3 Professional Auto-Reply Message Samples for Business
A positive customer experience can help set you apart from your competition, attract new business, and retain current customers. Discover ways to connect with your audience through auto-reply message samples for business.
One of the top reasons people stop interacting with businesses is how they’re treated. Thirty-five percent of shoppers would walk away from a business they love after a single bad experience. Part of creating a positive experience is communication. When someone reaches out with a question, they want a timely, relevant response. Even if the answer is waiting, they know the business received their query and will deliver a solution. Auto-reply messages are a powerful yet easy way to connect with consumers and develop lasting relationships.
Keep reading to understand how auto-reply messages can benefit your company and see samples of effective messages that help boost sales.
Key Takeaways
- Auto-reply messages are pre-programmed responses sent automatically as a reply to a customer’s digital contact.
- Your company benefits from auto-reply messages in several ways, including increasing response times, building customer loyalty, and driving customer satisfaction.
- Auto-reply message samples for business can help you navigate offline live chats, out-of-office contact, and wait times.
What Exactly Are Auto-Reply Messages?
Auto-reply messages are pre-programmed responses that automatically reply to some form of digital contact from your customers. Whether it’s an auto-generated email, chatbot response, or pop-up window on a web page, an auto-reply message maintains communication with your customer base without actual company representatives.
Auto-reply messages enable customers to stay informed even when your workers are busy or out of the office or if it’s outside of working hours. These responses are a way to communicate with your shoppers and provide transparency throughout the customer journey. Creating personalized, automated responses to commonly-asked questions or specific scenarios helps people stay informed and builds a strong brand identity for your business.
How Do Auto-Reply Messages Benefit Your Business?
Communication is an essential part of customer service. However, it’s also time-consuming and labor-intensive. By moving to an automated system, you free up your workers to focus on other tasks that require human contact. You also reduce human error and increase overall efficiency for higher productivity. Automated responses can help lower the cost of doing business since you don’t have to hire someone to do this task.
For numerous reasons, auto-reply messages are important for your newspaper printing or magazine printing business. They help to:
- Increase response times: Today’s consumers want faster response times. Auto-reply messages enable you to reply to interested parties immediately.
- Build customer loyalty: When people know they can count on your business to deliver quick, useful information, they trust your business. Trust leads to customer loyalty and repeat sales.
- Manage expectations: Through responses that help identify where an order is, provide tracking information, or explain that a customer service representative will respond in a certain amount of time, customers can manage their expectations.
- Increase engagement: Email, chat, and web features let companies increase engagement on multiple channels and build even deeper customer relationships.
- Drive satisfaction: Businesses can use auto-reply messages to acknowledge customer requests and deliver relevant responses that increase customer satisfaction ratings.
Auto-reply messages help customers gain the confidence they need to patronize your business. These messages can help grow distribution, grow page count, and increase advertising revenue.
3 Effective Auto-Reply Message Samples for Business
There are a variety of scenarios where an auto-reply message helps you connect with your customers. Here are three auto-reply message samples for business that could come in handy for your publication.
1. Offline Live Chat Messages
The beauty of online shopping is that customers can conduct business at their convenience. People could reach out to your company after hours or during holidays. Just because nobody is at your location to field those messages doesn’t mean consumers have to be left hanging. Consider using offline live chat messages that let people know when to expect a live response and inform them about your operating hours.
An offline chat message sample might look like this:
- Thanks for reaching out to [company name]! We’re sorry we missed you. Our operating hours are Monday through Friday, 8:00 a.m. – 5:00 p.m. (CST). Please email our support staff at [email address] if you need immediate assistance.
This message lets people know that the company has received their query and that they should reach out again when the chat feature is available. It also provides alternative options for contacting a live person if their request is urgent.
2. Out-of-Office Reply
It’s wise to create an automated out-of-office reply for your customers if you know you’ll be out of the office. Let them know the dates you’ll be gone and when they can expect to hear from you again. If applicable, include contact information for another representative who can help them in your absence. This reply helps manage expectations and allows the customer to continue moving forward in seeking answers to their questions or completing an order.
Out-of-office reply messages help retain customers and builds trust and customer loyalty because customers won’t wonder why they haven’t heard from you. Why is this significant? Because 65% of your sales come from existing customers.
Auto-reply message samples for business using out-of-office responses could include:
- Hello, and thank you for your email. I will be out of the office from [date] to [date] and will be responding to emails upon my return. If you need immediate assistance, please contact [name] at [email address] or [phone number]. Otherwise, I’ll be in touch on [date].
These details help set expectations and allow customers to plan for more thorough responses.
The following video provides step-by-step instructions for setting up an out-of-office auto-reply message in Outlook:
3. Managing Wait Times
When a customer contacts a business, waiting before a company representative can interact with that customer is not uncommon. Wait times can be more bearable when people know how long they expect to be in the queue. When support staff is busy, it’s advisable to send an automated message to customers to let them know what to expect.
A sample auto-reply message for managing wait times could be:
- We’re sorry. All of our agents are currently assisting other customers. You are currently [number] in the queue, with an estimated wait time of [number] minutes. We look forward to providing you with excellent customer service, and thank you for your patience!
Auto-reply messages that are transparent, informative, and detailed can be the difference between a customer who waits patiently and one who leaves in frustration.
Create a Positive Customer Experience that Converts
BOOM Communications helps newspaper and magazine printing services develop strategic marketing and advertising solutions that deliver positive customer experiences and increase conversions.
Contact BOOM Communications today to learn how we can help you create a positive customer experience that increases customer loyalty and generates revenue.