Some of my coworkers have started putting “Thank you for your email” at the beginning of their out of office replies. Management loves it, but I think it’s too ingratiating and I cringe when I read it. These are junior-level staffers, so maybe it makes sense in that context? Anyway, I refuse to put that in my out of office messages.
But the best OOO (actually, an autoreply) came from Ryan Reynolds – you know, the actor and gin company owner. If you emailed him, you got this (I think there were others too – this is the one I got): Thank you for your interest in Aviation American Gin! You’ve reached my Out Of Office Mission Statement.
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Hi, Happy holidays, and thanks for your email! I’m taking a few days off to spend time with my family and friends so I won’t be answering emails as quickly as usual.
Go ahead to iPhone Settings > Control Center > and include Do Not Disturb While Driving. Now you are ready to manually switch your phone to vacation mode from the control center.
I will surely respond to your email when I’m back in the office. But, if this requires an immediate response, please resend any messages that require my immediate attention with a subject line of “URGENT: [Original Subject]”.
Yes, me too. It’s a lifesaver. Although to be fair, Outlook announces the fact that you’ve got an OOO message going out with a big yellow banner, so it’s quite hard to miss.
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I’ll add “with limited access to email and voicemail” if I’m out because of work-related stuff (back when we used to have offsite meetings!), and “with no access to email and voicemail” if I’m truly on PTO.
Have you sent a proper farewell email to the whole office, thanking everyone and wishing them well?
In case of pressing issues that need urgent attention, feel free to reach out to [CO-WORKER NAME]. Give them a call on [PHONE NUMBER] or send a message to [CO-WORKER EMAIL].
Make sure that customers who attempt to contact you know when you expect to be in the office again. Most customers will understand the desire to devote time and energy to the family during the holidays, but they want to know when you'll be back to provide them with your usual excellent customer service.
Save time and direct folks to a page with answers to frequently asked questions in an autoresponse to help sort and prioritize customer service inquiries. Thanks for reaching SimpleTexting, my name is Jenny. While you wait for a customer support rep, see if we can answer your question here https://txt.st/PQBLPE.
The holidays are a time for warm wishes and for expressing gratitude for a great year gone by. While holiday messages may not take a lot of time to write, they are a great way to show you care and bring people closer, whether the recipient is your employee, colleague, or boss.
On a serious note… sailing vacations are the best for no access/contact vacations. I heartily endorse them!
Note: You can also set different automatic out of office replies for different people. Just click the Rules… button in the bottom-left corner and add a rule for each person or email subject.
Try this out with your colleagues or share it with colleagues/clients headed off on a vacation to send them off in style:
I physically recoiled at the thought of my face appearing on a new browser tab. UGH. The pets do say who their humans are (usually just first name) and what the pet’s favourite things are. My phone is now filled with memes and photos of my monitor as I send pet photos to friends.