Is anyone policing your out-of-office comments?

How does your organisation represent itself in its emails?

Do you have a brand document that declares in minutiae the absolute font, size, colour and wording of signatures? Do you leave it to managers or individuals? I’ve lost count of the number of job titles I’ve given myself over the years.

Certainly, consistency is good for the brand. And anything that prevents some of those absurd graphics, animations or multi-colour texts cannot be said to be bad.

What about your out of office autoreplies? Do you have any level of advice?

In all honesty, not many people ever see more than a couple. In May, as part of an office-use study, I received over 400. I’m not going to name names, but here are a few highlights:

I am out of the office until Wednesday 30TH May. Please contact XYZ or ABC with any questions.

All other e-mails will be answered on my return.

All e-mails will be replied to on my return.

On dd-dd-dddd I will leave [organisation]. As such I no longer have access to emails.

If you message is related to Sales Development please email [name surname].

If the message is for me please email [freeserve email address]

This one doesn’t help if you don’t know how to contact the relevant team:

I have now left the [organisational team]. Please forward any emails to the [organisational team]who will be happy to help in any way they can. Many thanks

Please note I do not access this E-mail account and consequently your E-mail will not be responded to.

Please use [email in related organisation]

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