I do read and reply around 1000 emails a day, may be sometime more, sometimes less, updating status, asking status, sending out review comments on designs, sending out jokes…and what not.
What happens when I go on vacation? My emails does not get attended and keeps filling my inbox and maybe blocking other person, unless I setup an appropriate OOF message.
OOF, stands for Out Of oFfice message I set, which goes out every time someone emails me saying ‘I am not in office’
You can choose to say ‘you are not in office’ or can say something more better. Its an art and here are few points you should consider while writing an OOF email (especially if its your business email)
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Set up expectation: Your message should be meaningful and should set correct expectation to the person getting your OOF message. If you are leaving your phone number in your OOF email saying ‘call me if urgent’ person at other end would be comfortable calling you in urgent situation.
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Specify your OOF Time: Person sending email to you will have much better idea on when he/she should expect a response back. Otherwise he/she might call you up on your cellphone while you are chilling in Hawaii with your family.
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Specify your backup: You might want to leave a contact detail of another person in your team in your OOF message, so that person expecting some quick help over email find someone who can actually help at that moment while you are out.
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Different Message for different group: Many email clients like MS Outlook Express provides you option of setting different OOF message for different audience( internal/external). You wont want to send an OOF email to your potential customer which reads like this’ contact john@abc.com for this super secret project about invading mars’.
Idea is be simple, short and explanatory. Think about people who might get impacted while you are out, because you might not want your boss to call you in the middle of your vacation to understand how that thing suppose to work.
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