6 Top Auto Reply Messages for Business (Examples & Best Practices)

Imagine if you contacted a business for support and have not heard back from them for a few days. Isn’t it a frustrating situation? This is one of the common scenarios many customers face as businesses fail to understand problems by putting themselves in clients’ shoes.

After one negative service experience, 51% of customers will never do business with that company again. Hence, delivering excellent service is the most important part of customer retention strategies. Auto reply messages are the best ways to maintain a transparent connection with your clientele.

Automated reply messages can keep customers informed with the right responses that show your care towards them. With modern applications of Artificial Intelligence (AI), there are new avenues to automate your customer communication and handle customer requests more efficiently.

What is an automated reply message?

Automated reply messages are predefined responses used to communicate with customers across specific scenarios and keep information transparent. It helps customers to understand what is actually happening — whether your agents are busy, out of the office, or on holidays.

Automatic replies help to stay connected to customers even if the particular channel is not available at that moment. When you are out of the office or busy, it is extremely helpful to provide personalized messages as it gives satisfaction and positive brand experience.

Why are auto reply messages important for businesses?

Automated reply messages are a great way for businesses to fulfill customer support expectations of receiving a prompt response for their chat or email requests. Automated reply messages empower businesses to:

• Maintain transparent communication with customers and keep them informed in terms of managing their queries.
• By setting automated email messages, businesses can have continuous customer engagement via alternative channels.
• Customer value brands that deliver prompt responses. With auto reply messages, brands can acknowledge customer support requests that boost satisfaction.

Best practices of creating auto reply messages

Businesses rely on delivering excellent examples of automated reply messages to manage customer expectations and make them feel valued. However, it is recommended to follow the key ideas for creating professional auto reply messages to provide instant communication.

Let us discuss the best practices comprehensively.

1. Set clear customer expectations

One common challenge faced by customers is auto reply email or text messages lack a specification about the estimated wait time to get answers for their queries.

Here are common examples of automated messages received by customers.

• “We will get in touch with you very soon”.
• “Thank you for reaching out to us”.
• “Our representative we contact you ASAP”.

The above automated messages do not sound assuring as the time is not specified in terms of hours, days, or week. Here is a good example that businesses can follow to deliver effective customer service communication.

Providing estimated time to customers for getting responses is the first and foremost best practice to be followed by businesses. Usually, when customers know what the wait duration is, they are not very frustrated. Hence, setting clear expectations is crucial for delivering excellent service.

Help your users know when to expect a response. It’s easy to show customers your team’s availability and let them know when they can get assistance from your team. You can manage their expectations by setting your office hours and expected response time.

2. Provide alternative ways of customer contact

Businesses that send autoresponder messages need to ensure that they provide alternative contact options. The automated email responses or text messages should clearly mention what way customers can reach out to the business.

Here is an auto reply message example that provides an alternative email contact option to assist customers during the absent period. Thus, helping customers not to make impromptu decisions and understand the next course of the move.

The alternate contact options can be offered to customers are:

• Contact forms
• Hotline number
• Live chat
• Email address
• Support section

When you share transparent business information and provide alternative ways when the relevant channel is not available, it delivers a delightful service experience.

3. Focus on the language tone

The language tone is a crucial component of your brand messaging. It includes various aspects of communication, such as the words used, the level of formality. Implementing a good language tone enables businesses to unify the way it communicates.

While creating auto responding emails it is vital to focus on the tone and language. It means:

• You should avoid technical jargons
• Avoid complex vocabulary that creates confusion
• Maintain a friendly tone

Just imagine the ease your customers feel when they receive a warm and friendly automated message that sounds human. Hence when you craft autoresponders, keeping your brand’s voice and style is very important to give a human touch.

You must pay close attention to signs of negative language or tendencies to sound monotonous. Instead, you can use simple, everyday vocabulary to convey your message.

4. Give the “what next” option to customers

Automated email messages generate a 70.5% higher open rate and a 152% higher click-through rate than standard marketing messages. Briefing what would be the next step of action gives customers transparent information.

If your auto reply messages give customers the ‘what next’ picture it will make customers feel that you as a brand can visualize their problem by putting in their shoes.

Acknowledging the customer support messages with well-designed auto responders helps them to know what will be your next step for the request they have raised. They become sure that you as a business are looking into the issue and they will get the resolution soon.

5. Make your automated messages appealing with visuals

Visuals always work whether used in messages or elsewhere. In fact, communications that include images produce 650% higher engagement than text-only messages.

Compelling visuals catch the eye, bring automatic messages to life, and they add a spark of creativity and imagination to your message.

55% of B2C content creators say that creating visual content is now the main priority. Here are key ways of how adding visuals enhances your auto reply messages.

• Incorporating visuals or GIF images to automated reply messages, you have a greater chance of customers reading your emails and completing the desired call-to-action (CTA).
• Including visuals or GIF images to the automated email messages makes it interesting and appealing to the recipients.
• Visuals enhance the description of your messages sent to your customers.

6. Personalize your automated messages

The marketing tactics of businesses should be focused on customizing the client experience to make each interaction meaningful and valuable. Personalizing your automated replies makes your customers feel good (if you do it right) because it helps you say something that’s actually helpful and targeted.

There is simply no better way to engage your clients about different aspects of your brand other than using an auto-text to sufficiently keep them on the know.

Personalizing the automatic reply messages helps in several ways:

• To keep the customers happy as they get frustrated when their experience isn’t personalized.
• Uphold customer expectations as maximum consumers expect personalized services from brands.
• Create brand evangelists as customers are likely to become repeat buyers of a brand that personalizes interactions.

Examples & samples of automated messages (Text, Email)

Many businesses are using automated messages for retaining their customers and setting good examples for other businesses to follow. Using the auto reply messages rightly helps the business from taking impromptu decisions.

Here are some samples and templates of automatic reply messages across various scenarios.

1. Offline messages with live chat

If the visitors land your website after business hours or during holidays and do not get any response they might slip away. They could be important sales leads and losing them can impact your business.

You can configure automated reply messages to encourage customers to submit their queries.

Businesses can create offline messages in REVE Chat to keep their customers informed about their business hours and guide them towards getting a faster response.

Under the customization option, you can configure the pre-chat form to create personalized offline messages. You can clearly mention the business hours and ask customers to fill up the form with the relevant sales or support query. Inform them that your support representative will be connecting with them at the earliest to sort out the issue.

2. Auto reply messages for queuing

According to American Express, “Six in ten customers feel that companies meet their service expectations”. Customers look for faster resolution and rely on the expectations that businesses set with queue time for evaluating their service quality.

When customers receive automated messages, they have expectations about the wait duration (in terms of number for e.g. 4 mins or 4th position), that can make or break their customer service experience.

Here is a good example of setting a queue message when all your support agents are busy.

One of our support champions will attend you shortly. You are [number] in the queue. Your wait time will be approximately [minutes]. Thank you. We appreciate your patience.

REVE Chat offers the template to set up personalized queue messages and exact wait to manage their customer expectations. Under the customization option from the dashboard, you can manage customer conversations by providing estimated time and message.

3. Busy autoresponders

Having a professional automated message when you are busy enough to answer customer queries right away can set the right tone for your business and inform customers when they can expect to receive the response.

It makes a positive difference when you create auto reply messages that adhere to the basic elements of personalized messages followed with greetings.

Here are some good examples of automated messages that businesses can follow:

• o [name] good morning! All our support agents are busy right now. Your estimated queue time is 6 mins. Thank you for reaching out to us.
• Hey [name] Very good morning to you! I am sorry that you need to wait for [time] as all our support executives are busy. We appreciate your patience. Thank you!

4. Out of office automated reply messages

Out of office (OOO), messages can be an incredible tool to fuel your success. A good away message allows you to tell your customers that you’re away and encourages them to move within the sales funnel with more ease. Using automated messages during holidays or conferences can create social connections with recipients.

Some examples of out of office auto responders:

• Hello! I’m going to be out of the office until [date]. If you need something before then, please contact [colleague] at [email] or [phone number] to receive assistance.
• Hello! Thank you for your email. I am out of the office right now but get back to you ASAP. You can expect a reply by [day] latest. For anything you need right away, you can contact [alternative contact option].

Setting up out of office messages removes the guesswork done by customers when a response doesn’t come back right away.

Benefits of using personalized out of office automated messages:

• Sharing specific business information gives you the opportunity to deepen your relationship with your clients.
• Offering precise messages offers transparent information and reduces the risk of confusion.
• A good autoresponder can send visitors to your company’s website if they need immediate help.

Final thoughts

Every customer interaction is important to showcase your brand personality and auto reply messages are no different. Hence, you need to make the right use of every opportunity and convert it into a good experience. Automated reply messages help you to provide great customer experience and also sets the right expectation.