My OOO auto reply is fairly detailed. I have links to information for products I work with, an alternate point of contact for people to approach, etc. It’s really a CYA thing. What irks me about some OOO auto replies is when the person who is out has an alternate point of contact who is also out. Both are obvious planned absences, and both people are on the same team. Don’t they talk to one another about vacation??
Before we further discuss some of the examples of a good out of office message, decide for yourself what you want to get from it and what tone are you going to use.
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Hey, why are you being so sneaky about where you've disappeared to? If you're not on vacation and your out of office is for a work trip, well darn it, work that! [Editor's note: Pun totally intended.]
Same, and I leave this template in my settings so all I have to do is change the date. Simple, to the point, and no one can say they didn’t know what to do while I was out.
This would go over like a lead balloon at my company, and, were that person on my team, I’d tell them to change it. It does have a connotation of “when I feel like it” about it, and most of my team is not high enough up the food chain to take that sort of stance (and the ones who are high enough up are client-facing and have the good sense not to do so).
Way too long, but so hilarious. I don’t get condescending at all. I’m drooling while imagining I had this on my work phone when everyone thought their requests were life or death. Actually, I wanted my message to say, “I realize you think your request is vitally important, but I’d like to reassure you: I worked in a hospital years ago, and good news! It’s really not.”
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.
“For example, if a hacker knows that the chief financial officer of a company is OOO, thanks to the information in the auto-reply message, an attacker could impersonate the CFO on email and target another individual in the company’s finance team asking them to make a payment or update bank details for them while they are offline,” says Sadler.
I work for a hospital, in a role unrelated to patient care. My first out of the office message was just my name and department. After a series of increasingly plaintive messages one evening, I added, “If you are calling about patient care, you have the wrong number.”
Mine says something along the lines of “I’m currently away from my desk, and will be back online on Monday, 7 July…” and (if it’s a longer period and not just the next working day) perhaps also something like “If your enquiry is urgent, please resend to…” so someone else can deal with it.
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A few years ago we had a team meeting, with the typical agenda provided to all by our manager. One of the items was OOO and the manager’s name and dates of her upcoming vacation–of course, to give the team advance notice that she would be out. One of my colleagues did not know the acronym and was at first confused. His read: “Ooooh, Mary is on vacation for these dates and is so excited.” Which I am sure was the case, but . . . no, not exactly. Ha ha.
Hi, This is an automated reply because I am currently out of the office until [MM/DD]. Did you email me to know more about [product/sale/service/etc]. If you did, take a look at this [ebook/brochure/infographic/etc]. I’ll be sure to answer any questions you may have about it upon my return.
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We had someone today that sent an inquiry about something (this person is not a client, more of an outside business partner). Dude sent, within about an hour and a half time frame, 7 emails. Calling out one person on the DL multiple times within a half hour, then proceeding to call out the rest of the DLs (ALL in the original copy list) to try to get an answer to his question.
As to who you choose, you might consider listing a coworker, your supervisor, or an on-call number if available. Just make sure to clear this with whomever you pick as a support person so they’re aware they’re backing up your calls and emails for emergent situations.