If you are planning to head out on vacation or step away from your office for a few days- creating an out of office autoresponder email message is essential (and even more important for email
My trick though is to leave the out of office on for the first day after I return so folks know to expect delays while I get caught up/triage my inbox. Works for my company.
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8. Remote working (COVID-19) out of office replies. Remote working has become more prevalent due to the COVID-19 pandemic, therefore increasing the need for specific out of office replies.
I am out of the office July 15–25. In the event of an emergency, please contact Yuko Kawakami at [email protected].
An out-of-office message is an effective way to inform people why you are not responding to their calls or messages and when they can expect a response. This information saves them from getting frustrated and avoids any negative impression from the inability to respond. If you have long-term relationships with your customers, such an auto-response system is highly significant as it avoids any inconvenience.
An out of office message could become an opportunity to connect with your client on a more personal level. Consider sharing something about yourself that they might not have known about while working with you.
These messages are generally formal in nature and have the information about the unavailability of an individual and also the details of the person who can be contacted in his/her absence.
I’ve heard “please respond at *your* earliest convenience,” but never the other way around.
Oh my gaaaaawwwwdddd my mother used to do this. Like, her work voicemail was “Hello, you have reached Lizy’s Mother, Job Title at Company Name. Today is Thursday, June 3. I am in the office today, but away from my desk at the moment. If you’ll leave a message with your name, phone number, and reason for your call, I’ll get back to you as soon as I can.”
Top of the iceberg though. Oh, and she also works with external contacts, including prospective clients.
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That’s so weird! Email is the correct way to reach a teleworking person, that’s the worst place for an OOO message. Stick an OOO sign on your physical office door, by all means!
For immediate assistance, please contact me on my cell phone at (your cell phone number).
Thank you for your email. Your credit card has been charged $5.99 for the first ten words and $1.99 for each additional word in your message. This message is automated because until [DATE] because I’m moving to [LOCATION]. That’s right. A cross country road trip from [CITY] to [CITY]. I’ll get back to you when we pull into the driveway.
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.
People also hate it when some people sign “Sincerely,” but also a bunch of people hate “Thanks” and “Best” and “Toodles” — almost any signature you pick someone will hate. This is one of those areas of language that feels really subjective and culturally dependent and also…isn’t that big of a deal?