The message will be automatically triggered in response to any incoming text received while the away message is turned on. Like this:
I appreciate your message. I am out of the office currently with no office email access. However, return on the following [date-of-return].
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Please contact my colleague (YOUR COLLEAGUE’SNAME) for your urgent concerns. Otherwise, I´ll attend to your emails upon my return at 08.02.2021.
Crafting an out of office message can be plenty of fun and we're about to show you how with our Mad Libs version!
Ugh, I wouldn’t mind changing daily if I could have a couple of prepared responses for normal circumstances (i.e.: “I’ve left for the day, but I’ll be back in the office tomorrow morning to return your call”) to select from, but having to create a new message for Tuesday night when the info for Monday night is the same? Rage inducing. Email is asynchronous, you KNOW you’re not going to get an instant reply and sometimes you email knowing fully well that it won’t be seen until the next morning/week/whatever. Why on earth mandate an auto-reply for that?
In this image, you're letting people know you're OOO with a "Missing" notice on a milk carton. Genius. Just be careful — this sort of autoresponder is best for internal emails, not for autoresponders that get sent to prospects and clients.
Thank you for your email. Unfortunately, I am currently out of the office and will not return until 3rd November.
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pretty regularly and if we forgot to change the message, our callers were quick to tell us the outgoing message was outdated.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…
Did you look at the comments on the TikTok? Because the overwhelming majority love it and are asking if her company is hiring. So it doesn’t seem like most people find it condescending even in video form.
I’ve honestly considered changing my OOO message/voicemail to “You’ve reached Lisa. I’m overwhelmed right now, so I’ll get back to you eventually.”
One of the most common mistakes people make when setting up their auto replies is making them long. Nobody wants to read a long email message — and especially so when it’s an email message that tells them you’re not going to reply right now.
See, in my head, “as soon as possible” reads simply as a more formal way of saying “I will respond at my earliest convenience.” Like, either way, this person is getting back to you as soon as they can, whatever that actually means.
I wish I could block my voicemail. I would so get fired if I had a message like this and was caught, though.
Kate Sullivan is a work and wellbeing psychologist and doctoral researcher who holds an M.S. in applied psychology from Heriot-Watt University in Edinburgh and specializes in non-traditional careers and helping people craft their best, most satisfying work lives. She regularly writes about work-life balance and modern careers at constellationcareers.com and for leading business publications.
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You probably received a number of these emails, and thus you should be familiar with the information out-of-office emails provide.