Note: If you don’t see Automatic Replies, use Rules and Alerts to set up your out-of-office message.
Dr. Ayoade Oyedotun is the co-founder of Afrimash - An Online Shopping Site for Agricultural Items. His daily work encompasses customer service, sales and marketing, human capital management, and business operations management. He is passionate about working smarter using the Internet technology.
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1. Order before [DATE] and have it shipped on time for [holiday name] Ideally, your promotional campaign should have been running for at least a week before the holiday festivity begins.
Please include their names, phone numbers, and email addresses. If you handle multiple areas, let colleagues and clients know what each person specializes in so they can contact the right person for help.
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Kate Sullivan is a work and wellbeing psychologist and doctoral researcher who holds an M.S. in applied psychology from Heriot-Watt University in Edinburgh and specializes in non-traditional careers and helping people craft their best, most satisfying work lives. She regularly writes about work-life balance and modern careers at constellationcareers.com and for leading business publications.
This. I’m surprised more people dont havent mentioned this, but this has always been my back to work routine – and sometimes if vacations overlapped, I’d find a summary email of “While you were away, X,Y,Z happened, I covered A, but you might want to check on B and C” which was always very helpful.
“No matter what your best intentions, you're going to get bogged down the minute you return to the office,” Sullivan says. “Don't set exact timeframes for responding to messages in your OOO. Instead, set general expectations for‘I'll respond as quickly as possible upon my return,’ giving you some leeway.”
Once I got an auto reply from a stakeholder on a project that said something to the effect of “Thanks for contacting me. Due to the large volume of email I receive, I don’t read them all. If I haven’t responded within 3 business days, please try again.”
2) Hi. I’m thinking about what you’ve just sent me. Please wait by your PC for my response.
I am the LW! It’s interesting, having Alison type out the OOO reply comes across less condescending than how it did in video. I’m sure it works for their office but it also says a lot, potentially, about their culture that she’d need to write something out like that in the first place! Usually “I’m OOO from X to X, please contact X for (reason)” should suffice.
By providing this information for anyone who tries to contact you, it ensures important emails don’t go unnoticed or ignored.
Hello, We are currently closed for the holiday. If it’s something urgent you can email [name] at [email]. Kind regards. [Name/signature]
To create a new OOO template from scratch, go to Settings → Smart Tools → Templates, click + Add Template, and select Out-of-Office from the menu.
2) Hi. I’m thinking about what you’ve just sent me. Please wait by your PC for my response.
I say this as someone who used to have a chronic problem keeping up with my personal voicemails. But I got voicemail transcription set up so I can read them now, because just ignoring important phone calls has consequences. I can’t imagine trying to just duck them in a professional job where I had a phone number, and therefore an expectation that people can call me!
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