File –> Automatic Replies –> Type your message in both sections – Inside my organization and Outside your organization.
12. "Hi, you've reached [company]. We're available by phone from [hour] to [hour] [time zone] Monday through Friday [optional: and from hour to hour on the weekends]. You can also contact us by going to our website, [URL], and live-chatting or emailing us. If you'd like us to call you back, please leave your name and number after the tone."
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Read our guide to setting up email on a Mac, iPhone and iPad here. Plus how to send email attachments in Mail on iPhone.
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pretty regularly and if we forgot to change the message, our callers were quick to tell us the outgoing message was outdated.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…
Apparently, people receiving such a notification rarely get angry. "The response is basically 99% positive, because everybody says, 'That's a real nice thing, I would love to have that too,'" Daimler spokesman Oliver Wihofszki told BBC Radio 4's Today programme. Holiday envy has been replaced by corporate email policy envy.
In an instant, you feel a weight lifted from your shoulders, and a choir of angels sing Paul Kelly’s How to Make Gravy around you as you skip out of the office. You gaze upon the masses of workers on the tram, smugly wondering if their out-of-office responses are on yet.
For many roles, of course, the sort of OoO described wouldn’t work. But there are a lot of roles where people would survive just fine letting their requests sit for an extra week before forwarding again. And especially at smaller companies where there they might be pressed for coverage when people are out, I think it’s great to normalise that a job is basically ‘off-line’ for a week or two so that the employee can rest and recharge.
Here is a good example of setting a queue message when all your support agents are busy.
If they think you’ll be checking in, they might still attempt to get in touch with you. In the event that you take vacation time or personal time, they’ll try to contact you less often.
How's that for an out-of-office message? Probably not ideal. As a working professional, emails are your lifeline. And even when you're not around to respond, you need to let senders know you're not actually ignoring them.
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I have a message saying I don’t listen to voice mail, because I only see that a message has been left after several days. No idea why the lag, it’s been the same despite going through two phones and two operators. There are always other ways to contact me. Last time I got voicemail it was the police, the officer was calling from a landline so he couldn’t text. Luckily it wasn’t urgent (he needed a witness statement, but I hadn’t witnessed anything of interest to the court).
Erin Ollila is a content strategist and writer who believes in the power of words and how a message can inform — and even transform — its intended audience. Reach out to her on Instagram at @ErinOllila, or visit her website erinollila.com.
If I’m out for three months, *someone* is doing each bit of my job in that time. Me coming back and wading through three months of emails where the majority of them will involve someone seeing the OOO and promptly emailing my cover instead, and trying to track down which ones did that and cc-ed me, which ones did that and *didn’t* cc me, and which ones fell off is just a terrible use of getting-back-up-to-speed time.
Research shows that vacations are beneficial to our physical and mental health, work performance, and productivity. To replicate this research, I’m conducting a participant observation study until DATE, and will be out of the office. In the interim, if you have an urgent request, please reach out to EMPLOYEE. Otherwise, I’ll be in touch upon my return.
Hi, I will be away from my desk [MM/DD] until [MM/DD]. For urgent matters, you can contact [name] at [email] or [phone]
However, if you do choose to do this, make sure you actually follow through and do the thing you’re bragging about, unlike this New York Times reader who was just a bit too bold.