Out of the Office but Reachable Message. Not every vacation you take is going to leave you completely unreachable. For those days when you’re out of the office but are still checking and responding to email or phone calls, make sure your message explicitly states that people will still be able to reach you, and how
What was weirder is that it took a couple weeks after covid hit for her to turn the message off – which meant that when the entire company was wfh, we would still get an fyi message from her that she was also working from home.
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I don’t usually read the messages anyway, I just take it as information that the recipient won’t see my message right away. If that will cause issues, I’ll contact someone else.
Company President doesn’t want sales to use ‘out-of-office’; they’d prefer that the customer feel we were always available for them – 24/7. They also say that vacation are just nicer places to read emails….
Thank you for emailing me. I am currently out of the office, with no email access. I will be returning on [DATE]. If you need immediate assistance before then, you may reach me at my mobile [PHONE]. Kind Regards.
So many people emailed Ryan that Aviation Gin's servers crashed. Here's his July 2018 out of office message:
I don’t. They just have to wait. The people in my office that could have a legitimate emergency that requires my input have my cell number, and they’d just call me.
On the other hand, you can get more interesting or playful with subject lines such as:
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Explain why you're out. No need to go into great detail that you're traveling to seven different European countries. Simply state whether you're on vacation, at a conference, or on a business trip.
One day, the boss said I needed to start answering phones, and did not accept my pushback.
By making this information public, you have unwittingly given a hacker everything they need to complete a Business email Compromise (BEC) scam. In these BEC attacks, the hacker commits fraud by pretending to be a senior employee and will attempt to coerce the recipient into complying with a fraudulent request – such as wiring company money.
I work at an animal shelter and I have included a picture of an adoptable pet when I’m on vacation – I don’t know if that comes across as annoying or not, what do you think? Basically, it’s “I’m out until X and I’ll return your message when I get back. In the meantime, take a look at Fluffiekins here (picture, link to bio). Will she be adopted before I return?”
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.
Thank you for your email. Our offices are closed until [date]. If it’s something you need urgent assistance, Contact [Name] on [phone number] or [Email]
One thing that really bothers me in out of office messages is “contact my supervisor” without listing the supervisor’s name. I work in a company with 4 large service departments, and each department is broken into multiple smaller teams. I don’t have a great grasp on who is on or who leads which smaller team, and we don’t have an org chart with that much detail readily available. If you’re saying to contact someone, I think you should always include the person’s name and contact information, not just “my supervisor”, “one of my team members”, etc. !
People often forget the power of an out of office message. One could even start their own language, as shown below: