The problem was that this had to be done on deadline and people wanted me to do other things for them that weren’t time sensitive. So I put up an internal-only out of office that basically said “hey sorry I’m working on project X and we have a tight deadline. If this isn’t urgent I’ll get back to you next week. If it is urgent, let me know!”
Going back to how some people can’t ever switch off, this person went above and beyond for their auto-email with a humorous graph that very accurately shows the highs and lows of stress levels before, during and after time away.
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i am 100 percent in favor of using email signatures and out of office messages to be more blunt about how you want other people to use/respect your time. from this: https://t.co/AkCrvVFVW0 https://t.co/on4YIpN7nB
Running away from your inbox or your work responsibilities doesn’t solve problems, it merely delays them. What boyd suggests, though, is something different. Her strategy asks us plan ahead of time: to construct an off ramp from our jobs as well as an on-ramp for the eventual re-entry. Her asks aren’t Herculean but they require some foresight — and they demand that a person be very upfront about what they want from their time off, and that they commit to protecting their time.
I’ve mentioned this before, but I’m really tired of the ones that are basically “I’m in a meeting for an hour and I’ll check my messages when I return.”
The virus that shut down the world: Economic meltdown. 30 December 2020 — With millions forced to work from home this year, offices and shops closing as part of containment measures, and travel ... There is no one right day (or way!) to send a letter to a customer. However, holidays and special occasions can be a great opportunity for your business to reach out. Holiday letters are an excellent way to keep customers up-to-date, send out promotions, and show customers you care.
Perhaps someone reached out to your marketing department regarding a press inquiry, guest post pitch, etc. You’ll want to be sure you’re ready with a response. Thanks for reaching out to NAPA marketing, someone will be in touch with you shortly. What can we help you with?
But what if you’re only taking off one day? Sometimes, it might seem silly to bother with an out-of-office for such a short amount of time–especially if it’s a day that a lot of other people are taking off (such as a national holiday). If people do need you to get back to them urgently, they’ll think they’re being ignored. (Even if you define “urgently” differently.) And if there’s a chance of an emergency landing in your inbox, it’ll be that much harder for you to unplug because you’ll just keep “checking in.”
In general, because of my position (C suite) my OOO messages are boring and predictable. I’m out from xx date to xx date. If you need help in my absence, please contact xyz person. Otherwise, I will reply to your email upon my return. blah blah blah
Lead generation emails are the best when it comes to driving sales and promoting your content. Here’s an example template to inspire you:
Thank you for your email. Your message is important to (Us/Me) and (I/We) will respond as soon as possible.
I read it as coming from a person who was overly frustrated with their regular OOO being ignored. It’s one of my pet peeves – the OOO clearly says I’m not there and to contact Bob, yet the sender continues to reply, never contacts Bob, then blows up at me when I return that their work is delayed. I would love to be able to send something like this message in the letter but it wouldn’t fly at my office.
To successfully decompress, you know there are some odds and ends you need to tie up at work — specifically finding a way to communicate with your leads, clients, and coworkers that you’re not working, but you’re making sure their needs are taken care of.
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.
Education Details: Vacation Out-of-Office Message Examples. Our brains love surprises.What’s more, research has shown that small surprises that feel like they were “just for you” can spawn some incredibly strong goodwill from the receiver.. Next time you go on vacation, try surprising your customers with an out-of-office message that breaks the mold. out of the office for the day
Remember to make sure your auto-reply has a limit to how often it sends replies to any one address. If they reply to every single email they recieve, they can cause problems: https://www.reddit.com/r/talesfromtechsupport/comments/420oan/companywide_email_30000_employees_autoresponders/ I actually had that happen while I was on vaca, a travel agency e-mailed me with an update about my vacation from a no-reply mail box and triggered my auto reply, which triggered their “This is not a monitored mailbox” auto reply to the tune of 80,000 messages in my mailbox. It completely filled up my “available” space, so everytime I logged in and thought I had them cleared out, more would pour in. It took DAYS to delete all of them.
Don’t know if those happen due to bad software, or a bad configuration decision, or just careless users, but those exhaust me.