Do we still need out of office messages?
Many of my clients and colleagues, based out of Singapore, often take on regional roles which requires them to travel a lot. This requirement places them on planes and hotel rooms in neighbouring countries very often, and every time the leave, the activate the dreaded triple “O” (aka Out of office) auto reply email.
After years in the corporate world, I understand the role of this automated response, but today I’m beginning to doubt its usefulness.
I’ve come to realise that 90% (my guesstimation) of the time the only form of communication people loose while taking a business trip is their desk phone. Email, mobile, IM, VoIP (Skype mostly), and blogs are all just as accessibly from wherever they are. Be it at the airport, in a hotel, or at a remote office.
So why is there still a need to leave an out of office message when it doesn’t matter if you’re in the office at all? Don’t these auto-reply messages end up looking more like spam than useful information?
I’m increasingly making it a point not to leave such messages in auto-responders when I travel. I’ll inform my colleagues, and my clients one off, but the rest of the world that needs to contact my via email really doesn’t need to receive a piece of spam in return. At most I’ll be replying from a different timezone or at worst a day or two late which really doesn’t cause much of an issue since my mobile is always on global roaming for urgent matters.
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On the other hand, I feel that out of office message is very important.
It tells the sender that you are not at your desk. Usually the out of office will put the date that you are back and who is your coverer during this period.
If it is urgent and cannot wait till you come back, then the sender can find your coverer.
I used to have such messages but after a while I just dropped them totally. Cos if it is urgent, the phone is there. If I am on the plane, a sms will still reach me that I got a missed call.
If if is not that urgent, then most likely an email is good enough and the sender should expect a decent amount of time needed to react too. Else a faster response will be a call to me than a mail to me.
Thankfully, the mobile phone is still out of the company’s domain (or so I’d like to think), so yes, OOO is still a necessary tool for people like me. Heck, when I’m out, I always remember the OOO and putting a message on my office voicemail!
When one goes on long leave, the out of office message is a handy tool to inform all of one’s colleagues (if it is a large organization especially) and customers that one is away for a significant length of time. Also, as dk said, one also needs to offer an alternative person to contact in one’s absence.