Wherever you go on holiday, you’ll probably have access to the internet at some point. You might want to acknowledge this in your O.O.O. – but it’s also worth forcing the sender to question if it’s really worth interrupting your holiday by setting up a very blunt alternative inbox... I know I’m supposed to say that I’ll have limited access to email and won’t be able to respond until I return, but that’s not true. My iPhone will be with me and I can respond if I need to. And I recognise that I’ll probably need to interrupt my vacation from time to time to deal with something urgent. That said, I promised my wife that I am going to try to disconnect, get away and enjoy our vacation as much as possible. So, I’m going to experiment with something new. I’m going to leave the decision in your hands: • If your email truly is urgent and you need a response while I’m on vacation, please resend it to [email protected] and I’ll try to respond to it promptly. • If you think someone else at First Round Capital might be able to help you, feel free to email my assistant, Fiona, and she’ll try to point you in the right direction.
The date range you're gone but more importantly . . . The day you will respond. (Pro tip: If you seriously get a ginormous volume of emails when you're away, or you're going to be gone for an extended amount of time, make sure this date is one or two days AFTER you're back from your vacation. Under promise, over deliver, do your laundry.) Alternate contact if there is an emergency. Your phone number (if you absolutely must, but I don't endorse this).
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Not only did Kopelman manage to turn his out-of-office message into an epic poem of sorts, but also, he actually went through the trouble of creating a delightfully snarky, vacation-specific email address for his recipients.
In our company it is very much the norm (though some don’t and it’s not looked down on. It’s just we kinda know every handles the ridiculous amounts of email we get in different ways that suit them). And it’s the norm of the people who so to put that in there because 1. if you go anywhere north of where we’re at, you’ll get zero reception and 2. other people we work with know you normally do.
Happy holidays! I am currently getting into the holiday spirit, and so is the rest of the office. I'll be sure to respond to your email when I return to work on Dec. 28, 2020. Thank you for your patience, and I hope you and your loved ones have a joyous holiday. All the best, Lennox Haven Marketing Director
Ha! Maybe she was short-circuiting someone who would send an email and then come over to her desk 5 minutes later to “see if you got my email.”
Very true, if the options came in reverse order (or maybe emergency first followed by not-urgent followed by urgent) that would be a little better.
In Outlook Mail, you can set an auto-reply or "vacation message" on your account. This will automatically send a message back to anyone who emails you to let them know that you are on vacation, out of the office, or otherwise unable to respond.
Thank you for your email. I’m currently offline until [date] to celebrate the holiday with my loved ones—without my phone in front of my face.
TEMPLATE #1. (Office closed for holiday notice: Memo to all employees) Dear All, Please note that our office will be closed on (day), (date) because of the (mention reason). The office will then open as usual on the next working day. This is for your kind information. Do spread this info among other colleagues.
You must pay close attention to signs of negative language or tendencies to sound monotonous. Instead, you can use simple, everyday vocabulary to convey your message.
Amanda works at HubSpot, and she came with a unique auto respondent that asked her contacts to guess where she is. To give background, she flew down to Boston to attend a Red Sox training game in the spring with her father. She chose to ask her contacts whether where they think she might be, and also this played some wonderful use of litotes here:
Tested to/from 2 iPhones (1 personal/1 work phone) and neither of them receive the designated Auto Reply Text. What am I doing wrong?
Loads of translators work freelance because it’s very easy to do from home, so yeah I’d not expect then to be standardised. I’ve received English and native language replies, but never both.
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If you’re going to be on vacation for a week or two, then it’s essential you set up your vacation email. If you miss the odd day, the world won’t implode, but if people don’t know you’re away for a few weeks and they don’t know exactly when you’ll be back, or who they can contact in your place, you’re going to have some unhappy clients or customers.
Not me, but a friend of mine once received an OOO that simply said “I am having an out-of-office experience.”