In my experience, around 3-5% of all prospects in our sequences will have OOO and auto-reply status, meaning that 3-5% of all prospects won't receive our follow-ups.
Here at Reply, we have created a playbook and a sequence on how to handle this type of replies.
This allows us to schedule at least one extra meeting per month (per SDR!) with minimum effort.
Here's how it works:
we add a bunch of prospects to a sequence
we send our initial email or a follow-up email to them
if a prospect is out of the office, we receive an OOO or auto-reply email
we move a prospect to an OOO sequence with a 2 weeks delay
we book 1 additional meeting
So let's see how we handle the OOO replies 👇
Step 1. receive an OOO email
Usually, it looks like this:
To be honest, I love the OOO and auto-reply emails for two reasons:
it's a source of 100% valid direct phone numbers
some will also include the info about an alternative point of contact in the company
Thus, we can use that information for our OOO sequence (their phone numbers) and Referral Sequence (we'll email the person who'll cover their back while they are out)
Step 2. add prospect to an OOO sequence
Next, we add the prospect to an OOO sequence in just a few clicks using Reply's Chrome Extension.
Step 3. the OOO play
Once a prospect is added to the OOO sequence, we will send them a few additional emails along with other steps like LinkedIn and phone calls with a 2 weeks delay (just to make sure they're back in the office).
More importantly, we can also personalize our follow-ups based on the information provided in their OOO email (whether they're on vacation, sick leave, maternity or paternity leave, etc.)
That's pretty much it! However, following this tactic allows us to book 1 additional demo per month while spending just 2-3 minutes per day:
Hope you enjoyed this post 💪. For more SDR hacks and playbooks that can be implemented in less than 5 minutes, make sure to subscribe to my newsletter:
P.S. Here's a funny OOO email generator https://outofofficetemplates.com/ created by Gong.io. Give it a try 😆