I'm out of the office enjoying the holidays until [date]. I'll respond as quickly as I can when the festivities are over and I'm back at my desk. If your request is urgent, please reach out to my colleague, [name], at [email], for assistance.
But you don’t need to write an instruction guide for people as though they’re incapable of solving their own problems without you.
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How you end a letter is important. It’s your last chance to make a good first impression on your reader. Choose the wrong closing, and you might damage the goodwill you have built up in the rest of your communication.
7. Out of office lead generation and content promotion templates. As with email signatures, out of office messages can be used for lead generation purposes and promoting new content.
I know a lot of people who never vacation for more than a few days because the email backlog becomes incredibly stressful upon their return; this is one way to meaningfully combat that which is somewhat in the employee’s control.
My phone just sits there gathering dust, so the only OOO message I need is the one I put in my email. Something like “I’ll read my email again on X. If you need assistance before then, please contact my colleague NN.”
I know you’re just blowing off steam, but the problem is that you’re working 65 hour weeks, not that they get proper time off! If labour laws were fair everywhere we could all have a proper uninterrupted rest.
But I’ve also seen this tactic used for a week’s vacation, which seems… aggressive.
After X enjoyable years, I do not work at [company] any more. Please contact [insert name and email] for enquiries relating to [subjects], or myself at [email] for personal matters.
Dear [Customer name] Our store will be closed from [date] to [date] for Thanksgiving. We are assure you all of your emails will be answered once we are back on [date]. Kind regards, [Name/signature]
I’d be happier getting this than one of the out-of-office messages that provides waayyy too much detail — “I’m at home nursing an unhappy stomach, hope to be in tomorrow, but meanwhile am resting and checking email in between bathroom runs,” etc.
Oh man, I mostly loved my European colleagues, but the “we were gone for a month, why haven’t you done more?” made me so, so stabby. That or the whole “hey, you really need to work harder to get this done by June 25th because none of us are going to be around to take care of our part by July 1.” So, I’m working 65 hour weeks for a month so you don’t have to spend 8 hours of your vacation working? Sounds fair.
That’s exactly how I set up mine, except that ordinarily I’d have several options, like: “If you need help with X, call A. For help with Y, call B. For help with Z, call C. For anything else, call my manager at extension 000.
Thank you for your email. I’m away from my desk until [return date] trying to corral my kids between family visits and holiday sugar highs.
Under “General,” scroll down to the “Vacation responder” section. Fill in your message and subject line and select the dates you’d like it to appear, then select “Vacation responder on” and then “Save Changes” to finish.
In this image, you're letting people know you're OOO with a "Missing" notice on a milk carton. Genius. Just be careful — this sort of autoresponder is best for internal emails, not for autoresponders that get sent to prospects and clients.
It seems that yoga pants are taking over our closets these days, replacing jeans, slacks…