Whether it’s a fully-blown holiday, or just a few days away that’s at the forefront of your mind – tying up loose ends at work should never be overlooked. Aside from delegating your workload while you’re away, this also means setting up an out of office email.
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If you require assistance before then I can be reached on my cell phone at ( cell number).
Think about a soon-to-be-ex-colleague that really could do with some extra enquiries forwarded their way (call it 'paying it forward').
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If you’re feeling stuck, try our free OOO email generator to draft a message that perfectly captures who you are and where you're going. Out-of-Office Messages for Vacation 1. “I’ll email you back once I’ve defrosted.”
Mine tend towards the latter for both internal and external and only get a little more expository if it’s a closedown period and I’m adding leave to one end of it, but that’s a simple “The organisation is shut between X and Y. For emergencies during this time please contact Team. I am on leave between Z and B and will not be accessing my email during this time. Please contact Email Address if your enquiry is urgent otherwise I will attend to your email as soon as is practicable upon my return.”
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.
I say I’m off-duty, or in non-working status, but I come from a DOD background. I no longer like to say out of the office. Unavailable is good too.
The UPS driver is scheduled to pick me back up on the eighth. He should deliver me back to the office by the ninth (assuming he’s not late like he was this time).
A weekly dose of all your favorite [COMPANY] content sent right to your inbox. To ensure you don’t miss out on all the good stuff, sign up for our newsletter here. I’ll be sure to get back to you when I return on [MM/DD]. Thanks.
It's not pure altruism though, as the company explained when the policy was launched: "The aim of the project is to maintain the balance between the work and home life of Daimler employees so as to safeguard their performance in the long run."
Now that you know what you should and shouldn’t include, how do you go about crafting the perfect out-of-office vacation message?
closing phrase; email signature template; sender's name; sender's contact information; Your email closing is the last thing a reader sees, so it can leave a lasting impression. A good, professional email closing will make a positive impression. A sloppy email closing full of mistakes may cause the recipient to view the email sender as less than
If you’re using Gmail, you’ll find settings for out of office messages by clicking the cog icon on the main screen:
Remember to make sure your auto-reply has a limit to how often it sends replies to any one address. If they reply to every single email they recieve, they can cause problems: https://www.reddit.com/r/talesfromtechsupport/comments/420oan/companywide_email_30000_employees_autoresponders/ I actually had that happen while I was on vaca, a travel agency e-mailed me with an update about my vacation from a no-reply mail box and triggered my auto reply, which triggered their “This is not a monitored mailbox” auto reply to the tune of 80,000 messages in my mailbox. It completely filled up my “available” space, so everytime I logged in and thought I had them cleared out, more would pour in. It took DAYS to delete all of them.
After I tweeted this example, dozens of people sent me examples of OOO messages they’d set or particularly good examples they’d seen in the wild. One example from a boss (via a TikTok) who offers emailers a decision tree of sorts. “Option 1.) Wait it out. Ask yourself, ‘is this urgent and important?’ If not, take a beat…you and I will be better off with this expectation set now,” the email begins. This one stands out because it’s extremely detailed, manages expectations and also offers who to contact in different situations. It models good behavior of taking time off, but also gives the original sender a variety of option. Most importantly, the responder forces the original sender to assess whether this is actually an urgent request.