A couple of months ago I was on annual leave and I set my auto reply to tell them to message my manager, but then my manager was on sick, so she said her auto reply to message her manager, except her manager was not available for some reason, so he said his auto reply to message the CEO.
One person went through the whole chain, and ended up asking the CEO for some payment schedules (which we’d already agreed but for some reason the client had forgotten), of course the CEO didn’t know so he dealt with it by ignoring it. So then I come back 2 weeks later only to find that the client is throwing a fit about being ignored, and now I have to smooth things over with the idiot. The thing is the payment isn’t due until next year, so he really didn’t need to escalate it, he could have just waited.
Business to business is usually fine, but when you’re dealing with small businesses, particularly family-owned businesses, it’s the same as dealing with the most awkward and entitled of customers.
As a European my autoreply does have a line saying
Depending on the judgement of the colleague reading the emails sent the I might get a call
One place I worked, a senior exec has in his email signature words to the effect of…
This. It’s not forwarded automatically, it’s up to the sender to resend or wait until I’m back.
A couple of months ago I was on annual leave and I set my auto reply to tell them to message my manager, but then my manager was on sick, so she said her auto reply to message her manager, except her manager was not available for some reason, so he said his auto reply to message the CEO.
One person went through the whole chain, and ended up asking the CEO for some payment schedules (which we’d already agreed but for some reason the client had forgotten), of course the CEO didn’t know so he dealt with it by ignoring it. So then I come back 2 weeks later only to find that the client is throwing a fit about being ignored, and now I have to smooth things over with the idiot. The thing is the payment isn’t due until next year, so he really didn’t need to escalate it, he could have just waited.
Business to business is usually fine, but when you’re dealing with small businesses, particularly family-owned businesses, it’s the same as dealing with the most awkward and entitled of customers.