And just like that, you covered the essentials. You don’t always need to have a Shakespeare-like auto-responder. If you, however, prefer a little creativity, continue reading- it gets more interesting.
Note: Sending automatic replies to anyone outside my organization will send your automatic reply to every email, including newsletters, advertisements, and potentially, junk email. If you want to send automatic replies to those outside your organization, we recommend choosing My contacts only.
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Setting up out of office messages removes the guesswork done by customers when a response doesn’t come back right away.
I agree that the reasons are not relevant. But at my last company, a coworker had overly short out of office messages. Examples: “out of office today.” Or “out of office until Monday.” With no additional information about coverage, etc. Those always felt overly curt to me and made me wonder, is this person okay? Was this OOO planned or are they on the verge of a mental breakdown? (It was a very toxic culture so this wasn’t out of the question). I would be curious to hear others perspectives on this. Is too little information just as bad?
Oh, this reminds me of the best out of office I ever received. It was three years ago, but it was so funny I saved it. All of it was gold but the sign-off was “Hoping that you are at least a little bit jealous (why else should I go on vacations to begin with?), I remain truly Yours, etc”.
Of course, very few people would be so pushy as to send you a private message about a business issue while you’re on holiday. Still, the odds are that you’ll amplify your social media reach and gain some new followers by including links to your social media in an OOO message.
One of your European connections here. When I know the person covering me will also be away for part of the time I’m gone, I get another colleague to cover for those dates and put that in my OOO. Saying “Your e-mail will not be read” or similar is really off-putting. The youth worker at my church does this and I find it infuriating. Of course it won’t. That’s the point of a holiday. When I get an answer from someone who reads his e-mails on vacation I’m pleasantly surprised.
Research shows that vacations are beneficial to our physical and mental health, work performance, and productivity. To replicate this research, I’m conducting a participant observation study until DATE, and will be out of the office. In the interim, if you have an urgent request, please reach out to EMPLOYEE. Otherwise, I’ll be in touch upon my return.
Editor's note: This post was originally published in February 2018 and has been updated for comprehensiveness. Try This Effective Prospecting Voicemail Script [Tips Included] Sales | 12 min read
Brad, You can manually turn on DND to activate Auto Reply, explained in the article.
Our office will remain closed until the end of this week for Thanksgiving Holidays. We assure you that all your emails will be answered as soon as we return to the office. Happy Thanksgiving!
My boss requires us to put a nightly OOO message up, and I HATE it. I pushed back on it for months at first, because people know and understand that the reason no one is responding at 8pm is because the business is closed (or at least, they should understand that…). It wasn’t worth the fight, my boss thinks it’s so important, so I caved and just turn on the message every night. I think it makes us look immature and like we don’t understand business norms, but it’s not the hill I’m willing to die on.
Give yourself some slack when promising people to keep up with their messages. If your vacation ends on January 18, but you know that you won’t be able to check up on old emails for the next couple of days, mention that in your reply.
My pet peeves are too much personal information (no need to tell me your cousin had a hysterectomy) and the ones that are carbon dated, e.g. from 2018.
6.) Bem-vindo a John Doe. Nosso atendimento telefônico não funciona durante o feriado. Nossos horários de funcionamento podem ser encontrados em nosso site www.johndoe.de. Agradecemos a sua confiança e desejamos à você e seus entes queridos boas festas e um feliz ano novo.
2.) Herzlich willkommen bei Mustermann GmbH. Aufgrund unseres Betriebsurlaubes sind unsere Servicemitarbeiter erst wieder ab Montag, den 04.07.2016 für Sie erreichbar. Der Versand der Bestellungen wird ab dem 11.01.2016 wieder starten. Gerne können Sie uns aber in der Zwischenzeit Ihr Anliegen per Email an [email protected] oder über unser Kontaktformular zukommen lassen. Vielen Dank!
I’ll reply to your message promptly, after I delete the dozen email newsletters about losing weight. If your question or request is not time sensitive, wonderful! If you require immediate assistance, please send contact to [insert name] at [contact email].