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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.
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If you’re going away on vacation, it’s very useful to set an automatic “out of office” reply for your emails. These automatic replies let people who email you know that you are not available to reply to their messages. Here’s how to set up an automatic out of office reply in the Microsoft Outlook desktop app and the web version.
Careful. Holiday revelry and debauchery ahead. Proceed with caution (if you dare).
However, I’ll be checking in whenever I can, and will respond to all emails marked ‘urgent’ as soon as I am able to. For immediate assistance, you can contact me on [mobile number].
People often forget the power of an out of office message. One could even start their own language, as shown below:
I hope you’re having an A+ [week, month]. I’m out of the office at this great conference [link to the event]. It takes place on [date] at [time] in [city and location].
Hi, I am currently attending a training session. As a result, my reply might take a bit longer than usual. I apologize for that. I will be able to respond in a more timely manner starting from [DATE].
Are you creating a voicemail greeting for your entire company or team? These business voicemail greetings will do the trick.
The appropriate tone depends on the holiday. If you’re closing for Christmas or New Year’s, it’s safe to assume your customers expect you to be festive and maybe even humorous. Conversely, if you’re closed for Veterans’ day, your email should strike a more serious chord. Use our templates and double-check your tone before you hit send.
When Outlook is setup to send automatic replies, you'll see a message under the ribbon with this information. Select Turn off to disable automatic out-of-office replies. If you want to modify the dates for your automatic reply or the message sent, use the steps above to modify your settings. Note: For Outlook 2007, to turn off out-of-office replies, select Tools > Out of Office Assistant and uncheck the Send Out of Office auto-replies checkbox. Update your Automatic Replies on the Outlook mobile app
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This is very useful in situations where you are changing jobs (as an employee) or a former employee has left your company (as an employer or HR manager). Permanent out-of-office emails help to guide correspondents appropriately.
I also do not have an OOO for external people – only internal. I always monitor my email enough to be able to forward important external emails to the right person to handle. IDK why, I just don’t like them having the burden of emailing someone else if I’m out. I’d rather my employee contact them and say “Hey, DataQueen let me know you were having an issue and asked me to connect with you.” My last CEO was out for a full year and almost none of our clients knew (we weren’t trying to hide it, it was just not pertinent to them).
I dunno, this is one of those areas I feel like people overanalyze. Like, yes, there are definitely some away messages that make me raise an eyebrow and I really don’t want anyone’s medical history. I’m not a huge fan of the one from the LW cause it’s a bit cutesy and takes too long to get to the point — I prefer short and sweet. But some people also just…struggle with how to put together an away message and copy what their boss does. Or they’re like me — I need a message that works for clients as well, so mine needs to be a little more formal, even if my office isn’t.
I run a summer camp and i can’t convince IT to forward the phone off season (and I forget to check those voicemails when they aren’t flashing in front of me), so the voicemail there says “You’ve reached camp, we are closed for the season, and voicemails on this machine are not checked. you can contact me at our head office at X or email me at [email protected], repeat info, thanks!
The email I send out always says something along the lines of “I’ll be away Thursday and Friday, so if you need anything from me, please let me know before noon on Wednesday. Thanks!”