In this post, I’ll go over what an OOO message is and share some of the best examples I’ve found on Google, as well as a few from my coworkers).
Okay. Before you go into fancyland or funnyland about how you're in the woods protecting yourself against bears, remember Rule 1! Make sure you have all the pertinent details in your out of office message.
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I am out of the office from January 14 to 20, with only limited access to my emails and voicemail. Please be informed that this mail hasn’t been forwarded. I’ll come back to you as soon as possible.
I have a confession to make: I haven't recorded a new voicemail greeting in nearly a decade. Since then, I've (hopefully) become more articulate, poised, and self-assured. But hear my voicemail recording, and you'd think I was still new to the work world, a little unsure of myself — and probably not an authority.
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There is no vacation responder on iOS to auto-reply text on the iPhone. However, there is a workaround for the iPhone auto-reply while you are on vacation. We are going to use the DND mode feature to auto-reply to incoming text messages while you are on vacation. This will work perfectly while you want to set auto-reply text on your iPhone to reply to calls and messages automatically while you are on vacation. iPhone Settings Scroll down for Do Not Disturb Tap on Auto-Reply Fill out the vacation text message you want. Select the recipient list to All Contacts.
I’m part time. I don’t use an out of office message, but I do have my hours in my signature, and sometimes include that information in the body of email. Many of the people I correspond with frequently need things turned around quickly – postings for public meetings need to go out so many days ahead of said meeting, and similar. They need to know when I’m available to get the work done!
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The reason I did it was that the first time I took maternity leave, I came back to thousands of irrelevant emails. It was a chore to sort through them, and finding the ones that were still relevant was like finding a needle in a haystack. And it wasn’t just a waste of *my* time – I often had to reach out to email senders only to hear that no further action was needed, so I was wasting their time too.
The following phrases will be very useful when you’re preparing your out-of-office message template. To say you will be absent I will be out of the office. I am not in the office. I am (currently) out of the office. I will be away from X to Y. To redirect the message Should the matter be important… If you require immediate assistance… For urgent queries… If you have an immediate need… …please email X. …please contact X. …please write to/call X.
So now this email is working overtime with the flood of enquiries, spam, well-wishes, and broken hearts.
An out of office message is basically a quality of life feature both for you and your business contacts. By warning your clients that you won’t be able to reply to their message right away you save the time they might have wasted on follow ups. You also won’t lose prospects who might’ve believed that you’re ignoring their request otherwise.
The problem was that this had to be done on deadline and people wanted me to do other things for them that weren’t time sensitive. So I put up an internal-only out of office that basically said “hey sorry I’m working on project X and we have a tight deadline. If this isn’t urgent I’ll get back to you next week. If it is urgent, let me know!”
I apologize in advance for any inconvenience that this may cause you, and I want you to know that I can help you rectify this if you contact me on the email or phone number below.
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I’m the same. I don’t find it condescending, it’s kinda eye-rolly but also kinda charming! I get why it could be annoying if you need info quickly. But really, why not inject a little silliness into boilerplate messages like this, as long as it’s not disrespectful or really out of step with your field culture?
I have a coworker who has an “always-on” autoreply stating that she “is busy with client meetings during the day” and therefore only checks emails at 9am and 3pm. I understand wanting to set the expectation that people won’t get an immediate response, but it really baffles me. If you are still able to respond within 24 hours, why does anyone need this information? To me it feels like some weird self-help tip or power move that they read somewhere that serves no actual function.