I do that for most cases. Occasionally I’ll change it to “I’m out of the country and will not have phone or email access.”
1. Out of Office Template #1 For the Person Who Works at a Traditional Company. Hello, Thank you for your email, I’m currently offline until [date]. I’ll reply to your message promptly when I return.
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A thing my employer does is when someone leaves, they just shutoff the email. So someone goes to the trouble of writing an out of office explaining that they have retired or accepted a job somewhere else and where someone can go for help and IT just nukes the email address 24 hours after the person leaves. Then whomever was contacting them has no idea where to turn next. It is a terrible policy.
Before each holiday or irregular business day that your office will be closed, follow this checklist to ensure your excellent customer service continues and your business remains safe throughout the closure.
I’ll be 1 percent connected while on vacation so I’m not 100 percent panicked on return. Thank you for emailing me.
I personally like it. Of course, the emails that I’ve seen still say what to do if the matter is urgent and needs to be handled now — but as a person who gets 100+ emails a day, whether I tell you I’m deleting all of them when I get back or not — if it is in the thousands of emails that might accumulate in the time I am off, I’m not going to see it or respond. Better that I tell you now that you are going to have to resend the email after I return (or get my backup to handle it now) than you sit around waiting for a response that is never going to come. It is actually pretty common in my industry for any absence two weeks or more.
If you’re off to have fun on your vacation, you might as well have some fun in your OOO message! And hey, you might inspire someone else to start planning their next holiday.
People also hate it when some people sign “Sincerely,” but also a bunch of people hate “Thanks” and “Best” and “Toodles” — almost any signature you pick someone will hate. This is one of those areas of language that feels really subjective and culturally dependent and also…isn’t that big of a deal?
Ha – I didn’t watch the video but still definitely get the condescension! It’s a LOT of extra explaining and direction when something like, “if you need immediate assistance, please contact Fergus at…” will do. In my opinion, cutesy stuff like this is mildly entertaining at the beginning but gets dumb/annoying shortly thereafter. Not just with OOO messages, but other instances where companies try to make being “cool/funny/laid back” parts of their brand in really obvious ways.
There are two ways to send automatic out-of-office replies. The way you use depends on the type of email account you have.
“We went to New Zealand and I informed everyone in my [out of office] that I was ‘bungee jumping in Queenstown’, which seemed like what I should do in Queenstown,” the reader said.
Because of this, typical out-of-office replies will often split the difference between our hopes and fears and say something like: “I’m out of the office and can be reached but if you need assistance right away, please contact x person.”
Our office will be closed on Monday, May 25th in observance of Memorial Day. We will reopen on Tuesday, May 26th at 8:00 a.m.
A retired small town newspaper guy once told me about the first time the publisher went on vacation and left him in charge (this would have been in the 80s). The publisher told him “Don’t call me unless the building burns down, and even then, don’t call me until the fire is out.” Good example of management setting vacation expectations.
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”
Hello! Thank you for your email. I am currently out of the office. We have closed for [holiday name]. I will be returning on [date]. If you require immediate assistance, you may reach me at – [mobile number]. Thanks!
As more people are vaccinated and free to live a more normal life again, vacation plans, trip pictures and conference hashtags will flood social media sites. Phone calls and emails to colleagues will be met with out of office (OOO) messages. You might feel happy for that person, or maybe a little jealous that they are getting away. You should also feel concerned for their security well-being.