Thank you for your email. I am no longer with [company name]. Please direct enquiries to [insert name and email] or [insert name and email].
My outgoing voicemail message says “Please don’t leave me a voicemail, send me an email instead”
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If it’s not that infinite loop of autoreply hell, you get the “I will not be reading or responding to any email sent during this time. Please resend your request after August 1st.” dismissal.
Being a responsible netizen or professional in the Internet age also means leaving useful clues and messages for your email correspondents whenever you will be out of reach temporarily or permanently. Remember that your email correspondents expect you to respond within minutes or, at most, 24 hours of receiving their emails unless specifically stated in the email that you are free to respond much later.
For many roles, of course, the sort of OoO described wouldn’t work. But there are a lot of roles where people would survive just fine letting their requests sit for an extra week before forwarding again. And especially at smaller companies where there they might be pressed for coverage when people are out, I think it’s great to normalise that a job is basically ‘off-line’ for a week or two so that the employee can rest and recharge.
My grandboss used to put in his OOO: ‘I’m out of the office. If you need x or y, contact Andy or Jane. They know stuff.
I get why that would bug the hell out of you. But on the flip side, having worked with a lot of European colleagues who do this, it’s not that they’ll have to 8 hours of work on vacation, it’s that they won’t be working at all. So if your bit isn’t done by X date, then their bit won’t get done until they return. That’s just the culture there.
Season’s Greetings! It’s my favorite time of year, which means I’m currently out of the office chugging mugs of cocoa, stuffing my face with cookies, and attempting to fulfill my life-long goal of memorizing every single line of [FAVORITE HOLIDAY MOVIE]. I’ll be back in front of my computer on [DATE] and will respond to your message at that time. If you need immediate assistance, please send an email to [NAME] at [EMAIL] so that the other elves in this workshop can help you out. Happy ho-ho-holidays!
If you are checking emails while you’re out and are responding slower than normal, state that, suggests Jill Gugino Panté, director of the Lerner Career Services Center at the University of Delaware. “If you don’t have access to email and can’t return messages, state that as well,” she says. “The clearer you are in your messaging, the better.”
You’ve been busy planning out your tasks, tying up loose ends, and working ahead to ensure you can disconnect, recharge, and relax over your holiday break.
I’ve seen similar things with OOO messages where people would update them practically daily. “I’ll be away from my desk from 9-2 with intermittent emails and then on a call from 3:-3:45” and ….dude. We don’t need that much detail every day.
I’ll be sure to reply to your message when I wade through my inbox upon my return. If your message is time-sensitive, please send an email to [contact name] at [contact email].
You have options like Recents or Favorites to select based on your choice. This section will take care of the iPhone Auto Text Reply.
Let us go through the step by step instructions to set out of office messages on iPhone, iCloud email to auto-reply your clients on your next vacation.
If you need my assistance before then, you can reach me at my mobile – (Mobile Number).
The vice-chancellor of [X] University is extremely pleased to announce the winter vacations from the 25th of December to the 6th of January 20XX. All the offices of the University Campus enclosed for the said period. Have a safe holiday and enjoy the break.
When we set an out-of-office, we don’t immediately think of lead generation. However, it is a good opportunity to this end. For instance, you could encourage attendance for a webinar or future event, suggest sign-ups for online courses, give links to book downloads, or point recipients in the direction of any other product or service you are pushing. As well as informing the recipient of your unavailability, you are encouraging them to act.