Your out-of-office message needs to set expectations around communication. First, provide information about when you’ll return. Misner suggests giving yourself an extra date to catch up.
This seems like information that would be better in an email signature than an OOO, really. That’s how my organisation does it.
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Voice mail is a strictly worse medium than almost any alternative. You don’t get the opportunity to converse and ask questions back and forth like you do with a phone call; you can’t extract information efficiently from the message like you can with an email (the old “ugh, I have to listen to this entire message over again just to check one thing he said at the end” scenario).
Once I got an auto reply from a stakeholder on a project that said something to the effect of “Thanks for contacting me. Due to the large volume of email I receive, I don’t read them all. If I haven’t responded within 3 business days, please try again.”
Yeah, it’s very strange. I understood changing voicemails to explain that the line can’t actually be answered, but someone is checking the messages and will respond (though that was also only an issue for the first few months), but they had no reason to even mention it for email. I started my job 3 months into lockdown, and by that point, procedures were in place to pretty much allow us to operate normally, albeit with a lot more done electronically than before.
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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:
I agree. I think this one is way too long and comes off as trying to be too cute.
So there you have it! While having fun with your auto-responder, try not to get carried away and end up upsetting anyone or get in trouble with HR! 😉
Hi stranger, Sorry I'm unable to reply to your email. I'm off frolicking in the meadows. Please do not contact me until I'm back.
Part of me would really appreciate an OOO that says, “I can’t get back to you today because I’m out robbing a bank.” Part of me would dread that, because I’d probably become that person’s court-appointed attorney.
She definitely had an excessive ego, and she was also a narcissist who loved to micromanage so it was a really toxic place under her. We used to love it when she went on vacation because the office was quiet, calm, and drama-free.
Meanwhile, feel free to get familiar with our newest article on [ARTICLE NAME AND LINK]. I’m sure you will find the content useful.
In the Message and Language section, select the language and enter text, images, and hyperlinks into the Message field. For instructions on language and the use of snippets, click here. Pro Tip: Within the message body, we recommend that you don't use phrases such as: "We are currently out of the office" or "Our office hours are....." Instead, use generic phrases such as "We have received your message and will be in touch." This approach protects your SLA in marketplaces that use detectors to discourage automated responses, which look for these key phrases and may not approve the message as a valid response to reset the SLA.
Supervisors with employees who work during winter break should track hours using the Winter Break Hours Tracking spreadsheet. Please follow the instructions provided and contact your Human Resources consultant with any questions.
As with a regular cold email, the best way to utilize your out of office message is to offer something of value to your client. So if you’re taking a vacation right after the launch of your newest feature or after finishing up on that huge blog post, linking to them may prove to be a very good idea. Explain why that content is useful and the person who contacted you about their thoughts.
Yes! I would roll my eyes *a*lot* at that message – it comes across as someone taking themselves way too seriously.