I haven’t set up an OOO message since I got my first smartphone. My usual method is to glance at an incoming work email and forward it to the appropriate person, or maybe write a one-liner response saying I’m out and will answer next week.
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Finally, if you’re doing something incredible for the holiday break, you may as well let people know about it. Heading skiing for a few weeks, or going on a cruise? Put it in your out of office! It’s not like your emailers can do anything about it.
My pet peeve is OOOs for the afternoon/an appointment when the person who set it up is NOT good at responding to emails in a timely fashion. If someone usually requires multiple reminders and follow up emails for me to get a reply to an email after 2 weeks, I don’t really need a notification that their responses will be delayed an hour until they get back from the doctor. It makes me think “who are you responding to that quickly, and why can’t you reply to me that fast??”
Over Twitter DMs, one woman sent me her OOO messages from when she was diagnosed with breast cancer. The messages — composed while she was undergoing chemotherapy treatments and recovering from surgery — were detailed and unique. They offered touches of humor, honesty, details about her treatment schedules and set expectations for others trying to reach her. She offered alternative contact options for potential emailers to make sure urgent requests didn’t fall through the cracks but offered a dose or reality as well. I particularly appreciated this line:
Top www.codetwo.com https://www.codetwo.com/blog/11-professional-out-of-office-examples/ · If you can and do – include this information in your out of office message. This will give your out of office message a professional vibe. But if you are not going to look at emails when you are gone – do not give others any false hope. The reason for absence – now this one is tricky. You should include the reason for your absence (vacation/ business travel), but you should avoid being specific.
This is typically what I do. People don’t need to know where you are or what you’re doing. It’s really none of their business. They just need to know how long you’ll be out, that you won’t be checking email or vm while you’re gone, and who to contact instead.
Hi, You just missed me. I am out of the office until [MM/DD]. If your question can wait, great. I’ll reply when I get back. If not, contact [name] at [email] or [phone] and they’ll take good care of you. Meanwhile, feel free to peruse our FAQ section of [website] to see if your question can’t be answered there.
I’ll be at a work off-site and will have limited availability by phone and email until ___, please contact ___ for immediate needs about ____ otherwise I will respond as soon as possible”
Whatever you decide before heading out for that much-needed time off, it’s imperative that you set up an out of office reply. Your customers and co-workers don’t get that same pause button as you do. That’s why you should inform everyone that needs to know about your time off.
And, although it’s fine to include certain details (e.g. what you’re doing), it’s vital to keep it professional. After all, this email will be sent to anyone who contacts you – so it’s not the place for inside jokes.
One day, the boss said I needed to start answering phones, and did not accept my pushback.
The auto-reply only replies ONCE to each email account, the first time they send. If someone sends you multiple messages, they will not get multiple replies back. This is a useful feature because it prevents your account from flooding a mailing list with replies or from filling your email inbox with automatic rejections from "do not reply" accounts.
Set your out of office messages and determine who monitors division and department messages.
7) If you’re reading this, Doc Brown was unable to make lightning strike the clock tower, and I’m stuck in 1985. I won’t be able to respond to emails or voicemail until 9ish on mm/dd, or until email is invented — whatever comes first.
I think that’s part of the problem! Tone in text is hard – and while sure you could read it is as fairly benign and jovial, if not a little obnoxious, you could also read it the way it was read in the video.
Like the previous examples, the message doesn’t have to be lengthy – you just need to let people know the details, and who they should be contacting in your absence.