I worked at an office where we used OOO messages on voicemail pretty regularly and if we forgot to change the message, our callers were quick to tell us the outgoing message was outdated. That end date feature would have been a big help for us! A local council in Wales needed to get a road sign translated into Welsh. (All official signs in Wales have to be in both English and Welsh.) They got an out of office message in Welsh from the translator they contacted, assumed that was the translation and printed the out of office message on the sign. They didn’t realise their mistake till a Welsh speaker pointed it out…
I do this because my industry’s norm is that people check their email on vacation, at least once or twice, but I don’t do it. I don’t have work email on my phone so it’s technically true.
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Hello! Thanks for getting in touch. I’m out of the office until [DATE] with limited access to email. But never fear! I’ve left you with some helpful writing tips to read and share.
I will be checking email throughout the day and will try to respond to messages promptly (please flag urgent.
I had a colleague that managed to set up a rule for an OOO that would only get sent if you cc’d or bcc’d him, which basically said that all those cc mails would get automatically put in a separate folder and he may or may not ever read them – may the odds be ever in your favor basically.
I have a deep paranoia about out of office messages ever since a previous (bad) job. Every year I worked on a huge project that took nine months, and three separate weeks (or more) of that involved correcting, editing, and reviewing a dense 300 page document.
Eh, figuratively. It’s like saying I’ve gone to lunch even though I’m still right here eating at my desk–the point is that I’m unavailable to do any work.
4.) Bienvenido/a a soluciones John Doe. Por motivos de organización interna nuestro equipo no se encuentra disponible hoy. Si lo desea, puede dejarnos un mensaje. Volveremos a atenderle el lunes. Gracias por su comprensión.
Thank you for your email. Your message is important to me and I will respond as soon as possible. Thank you!
If you need assistance during this time, one of my team members will be able to help. They can be contacted at [phone number] Monday-Friday from 8-5.
If you see the Automatic Replies button, follow the steps to set up an automatic reply.
Q. I work on Main Campus and don't have essential business to conduct during the winter break closure; however, I want to catch up on work before spring semester. May I work on campus?
You got this email immediately (classic autoresponder behavior), which means I’m out of office on vacation.
Something that actually was an issue with my employer ages ago: at one time there was a policy that out of office would only go to internal people, and nothing would be sent at all to anyone external. Apparently this was felt necessary in order to mitigate risk of burglary, so people wouldn’t know that “John Winchester has gone on a hunting trip” and that his house was empty.
So, take a lesson from @courtwhip, editor at PEDESTRIAN.TV, who wrote the above hilarious out-of-office email, fully stocked with mentions of the best movies from the 1990s. (By the way, “Splinter” is from Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, and as we all know, he loves pizza.)
5.) Уважаемые клиенты, наш офис будет закрыт с 24 декабря по 2 января. Вы можете связаться с нами, как обычно, в понедельник, 5 января. Мы желаем вам и вашей семье счастливого Рождества и счастливого и успешного Нового года.
If you are re-using the existing message from the past, make sure you update the dates so that your clients know when you will be available again. For a general out-of-office message, it is vital to include the office timings.