Hoo boy, have I got some PTSD from Old Job about out of office autoreplies. Exboss was such a stickler for them and actually enforced her expectations as official policy. Meaning if you didn’t do it to her exact specs, she’d call you back to the office to do it (which no one did) and read you the riot act afterwards while threatening to write you up for insubordination. She demanded them any time that we were away from our desk for longer than 30 minutes and for anything other than a meeting. So training in the conference room down the hall, a work lunch with teammates, leaving an hour early for an appointment, arriving late for an appointment, even working from home, all required OOO alerts.
But I’ve also seen this tactic used for a week’s vacation, which seems… aggressive.
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“It’s not about removing the OOO response altogether,” says Sadler, “but instead pausing to consider what details you’re including.” Continue Reading
A Day in the Life of an Autoresponder. Digital marketing guru Ann Handley has become legendary for her humorous out of office responses. Getting an auto-reply is by definition impersonal, but Ann turns a cold response into a friendly conversation through some clever personification, while also promoting the event she’s attending.
I also think you should give this email tactic a try – especially when you return from an extended break or vacation.
Use your absence as an opportunity to show off to customers and peak their interest in your content. Sending an out-of-office email is a good way to provide clients with more details about your business. Offer a link to an interesting online resource that your company has developed, like a blog post. This way, recipients are made aware of which lines of business your company are actively engaged in.
For those of you arguing that entrepreneurs and salespeople must always be available, I present to you Exhibit A. While this is specific to Yesware (and you should check out their other OOO examples), it's easy enough to tweak to fit your industry.
Such a system sends automatic replies to text messages and calls that you miss when not available in the office. A fully-functional app like Calls and SMS Auto Reply gives you a simple, convenient way to respond automatically to people trying to contact you when you are out of the office.
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10. "Hello, you've reached [X company]. We can't take your call right now, but please leave your name, contact information, and reason for reaching out, and one of our team members will be in touch within 24 hours."
I’m guilty of the “pre-vacation warmip” email…but I send it on Wednesday so Last-minute Louie can contact me before I go out on Friday. (And it’s not all-office!)
To set automatic out of office replies on the Microsoft Outlook desktop app, go to File > Automatic Replies > Send automatic replies.
Open Outlook and click File in the menu bar. You can find this in the top left corner of your window.Then click Automatic Replies (Out of Office). The Automatic Replies window will then appear.
With the Holiday season right around the corner, your office’s voicemail greeting should quickly inform callers of any potential changes in hours, days or availability.
The reason I did it was that the first time I took maternity leave, I came back to thousands of irrelevant emails. It was a chore to sort through them, and finding the ones that were still relevant was like finding a needle in a haystack. And it wasn’t just a waste of *my* time – I often had to reach out to email senders only to hear that no further action was needed, so I was wasting their time too.
Hello, Thank you for your email. I’m out of the office and will be back on [DATE]. During this period, I will have limited access to email. For immediate assistance please contact by cell number at [PHONE]. Best Regards.
I think this makes a lot of sense for a 2-3 month absence, when there wouldn’t be much point in reading and responding to things when you get back. Questions will have been answered and issues resolved by different means.