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By the way, one day I sent an email to the manager of a supplier, and immediately received an automatic reply that bounced back from her mailbox: "I am Take maternity leave. . . Ends on December 4, 2014. Please contact XXX during this period. . . "The strange thing is that at that time, she had already finished her maternity leave and had been working for three months. People have already gone to work, but the vacation notice has been hanging in the mailbox for a long time. It is obviously due to carelessness. I posted this on Weibo, and a classmate immediately commented: "I never set automatic replies on my emails, and I am particularly disgusted with the automatic replies set on other people's emails, but I don't know why so many people think that setting automatic replies is a professional thing." and professional conduct. ” Subsequently, there were many voices in favor, but the voices against it were also not weak. Seeing this, I found that some students may not fully understand "How to use automatic email replies", so I made this the theme of the second lecture of our business writing class.

"E-mail automatic reply" is just a small tool in the email box. Since the designers of the email box have designed it, it naturally has its place. The tool itself does not determine whether it is professional or not, it all depends on how you use it. If used correctly, it will be professional; if used improperly, it will be useless and even become a laughing matter in the eyes of others.

How can you use this gadget correctly to make it practical and considerate, and add points to your professional image? Below, I will analyze it from two aspects: 1. When to use "email automatic reply"? 2. How to use "email auto-reply"?

1. When to use "Email Auto-Reply"?

Now I can't remember when I started using "email auto-reply", it was definitely a long long ago. I must have seen the automatic replies that bounced back from the mailboxes of company leaders or other colleagues at some point in the past. Like many people, I thought this feature was very cool, so I started using it as it was. . Moreover, I later paid more attention to the sentences in other people's automatic replies. Once I saw a well-written one, I immediately excerpted it, thereby optimizing the wording in my own reply to make it look more stylish. Our company has never explicitly stipulated that employees must set up automatic replies in their mailboxes. However, basically every employee who often uses the company's mailbox will use this trick. This is the result of the mutual influence of members of a group, and this result becomes part of the corporate culture.

Some people believe that "corporate culture" is those things advocated by the company's core management, such as the values ????written in the employee handbook, posters on the bulletin board, and often mentioned in meetings. various ideas and slogans. In fact, those things that need to be frequently advocated, reminded, or even enforced are not the existing components of the corporate culture. They are fresh components that the core management is trying to forcefully implant into the "corporate culture." The reason for strong implantation is because it is lacking. "Corporate culture" is the collective behavior pattern naturally formed by many people in an organization. The true "corporate culture" is one where employees do what they do without the management telling them.

Even though I have been using AutoReply for years, I am always surprised when I receive some autoresponders. One of them is the nonsensical reply mentioned at the beginning of this article, "I've been working for three months and still say I'm on maternity leave." The other one is the reply I received when I exchanged emails with some college friends. In the early days of my blogging, I held several small-scale training courses to guide college students in job search skills. During the class, I often use emails to guide students in the class to revise their resumes, and many students have automatic replies in their mailboxes. Later, when I sent an email to my son’s college tutor, I also saw this kind of automatic reply. The "automatic replies" set by college students are very similar. They all say "your email has been delivered to my mailbox and I will reply to you as soon as possible" and so on.

Why do college students’ “email auto-replies” surprise me? Because, in my daily work, I have never seen such an automatic reply.

Yes, you read that right, as someone who works in a company where “email auto-reply” is part of the corporate culture, I have never seen this kind of auto-reply. The automated replies I receive in my work environment are all from when the recipient is on a business trip, on vacation, or out for meetings or training. In other words, as soon as I see this kind of reply, I know that the other party is not in a regular working state and cannot receive my emails at the usual speed. The content of these replies is also relatively fixed. They usually say: "I am unable to receive your emails as usual due to whatever reason and at what time. If there is something urgent, please call my mobile phone XXXXX, or contact so-and-so." 』Compared with the automatic replies used by business people, the automatic replies used by college students have a significant feature: there is no clear time range and it is a routine reply setting.

I speculate that the "disgust against automatic replies to emails" mentioned at the beginning of this article is caused by the automatic replies that can be received at any time and at any time, right? I thought again, the college-style automatic reply is excusable. After all, they don't use email as much as business people, so they hope the other person will feel a little more at ease after seeing this automatic reply. However, the question arises, can the other party really feel at ease after seeing this "routine automatic reply"? I believe that many readers, like me, understand their slightly "childish" automatic replies when they know that the recipient is a college student. After all, their environment is different from that of office workers. But if a business person sets up this kind of "routine automatic reply" in his mailbox, what will be the consequences? At least it makes people laugh, but at worst it makes people disgusted!

As we all know, just because the email is delivered to the other party's mailbox, it does not mean that the other party has read the email. What the sender really cares about is not whether the email was delivered, but whether the other party took appropriate action after reading the email. Therefore, for business people, "routine automatic replies" are not only a boring way to coax children, but also cause unnecessary email interference to the sender. If a company's employees collectively use "regular auto-reply", their email server will soon crash.

Seeing this, some people may ask: If there is a problem with our mailbox, either I can't send it, or the other party really can't receive it, what should I do? Today, even free mailboxes generally have the function of sending status notifications, and corporate mailboxes must have them. Although some companies may experience outages when using managed servers, the chances of this happening are not high. Moreover, if you urgently need a timely response from the other party, you should not sit in front of the computer and wait. You should pick up the phone and call him. Regarding this point, I have already discussed this in the first lesson "Why are emails sent not taken seriously?" "It has been discussed in ", so I won't repeat it here.

The function of the gadget "Email Auto Reply" is not to give the sender a reassuring "security notice", but a "disclaimer" made by the recipient to protect themselves. It actually says to the sender: I am "not in the service area" during this period. If you are in an emergency, you can either call my mobile phone or call someone. Of course, if you are traveling abroad or on vacation during that time and don't even want to answer the phone, you can also write a statement on the automatic reply saying "I am not able to answer the phone during this period." However, whether this is a good way to write it should depend on your professional characteristics and your company's corporate culture.

2. How to use "Email Auto-Reply"?

The situation mentioned at the beginning of this article, "I have been working for three months and still say I am on maternity leave" is mainly because the setter forgot to cancel this automatic reply. For Outlook business email users, this so-called "forgetting" is very strange. Because, in the automatic reply settings of Outlook mailbox, there is a place for people to fill in the usage time period. Let’s see what students in business writing classes have to say.

The Little Tree by the River said: The automatic reply in Outlook can set the date and specific time period, accurate to the second. After that time period, the automatic reply will not be sent. To be on the safe side, you should first check the settings when you return to the office and open your mailbox.

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If your company does not use Outlook mailbox, you can take a look at this classmate's advice.

@Miss T who can’t think of a name said: 1. The mailbox has a time setting, and the automatic reply will automatically end after the holiday; 2. Use the private mailbox to send the mail to the company mailbox, try it successfully No; 3. Develop the habit of checking whether automatic replies are turned off after vacation. The first thing I do every time I go to work after vacation is to check this; 4. The QQ status for business use will be changed in time. Even if the email is forgotten, the QQ signature will still be visible. Know it's time to get back to work.

In addition to the conventional settings, two students also shared their good habits of using automatic replies.

@Chelizi worked hard and catti said: First, if you are on vacation or out for training and are not in the office, you must set up an automatic reply and leave your mobile phone number in case the other party has something urgent and cannot contact you. Second, in my work, I have communication with the United States and other Asian countries. I will also set up national holidays when China celebrates the New Year. Colleagues from other countries have different holiday customs from you, and they should also set it up. Third, the first thing you do when you come back to the office from vacation is to change the settings back to avoid embarrassment.

The second point above is particularly worthy of attention. For us Chinese, it doesn’t matter whether there is automatic reply during Golden Week, Lunar New Year and other holidays. But if your communication partners include people from other countries, this approach is very necessary.

@CharlesLu lapse of time said: The automatic reply can also set the target of the reply, such as people outside the organization, or other rules, etc., which is more professional. In addition, you can get a lot of insights by observing the boss's automatic replies, especially the work handover or authorization instructions they write when you are on a long-term business trip or on vacation.

I strongly agree with what Charles said when setting up "email auto-reply", there should be distinction between inside and outside. This is what I usually do. For people within the company, I will take the initiative to write my mobile phone number and the contact information of the position agent in the reply language. It's better to be cautious about emails from outside the company. I simply write "Dear sender, I am out of office today. If you have something urgent, please give me a ring." Such a casual way of writing is consistent with my career. Features related to: First, I am not a business person, so I do not need to take the initiative to disclose my mobile phone number to everyone; second, people who have business dealings with me will naturally know my mobile phone number. No business relationship has been established yet. For a Party A, it is not a pleasant thing for a mobile phone number to be known to too many people.

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In addition, I really appreciate the second point mentioned by Charles, "The leader should write the authorizer information in the automatic reply of the email". Clearly, the leadership of his company is very focused on productivity. I have experienced the urgency of finding someone to sign because the company's senior management was "not in the service area". How can I not applaud the leader's attitude and practice of authorizing in the automatic reply to the email?

Okay, that’s it for the second lecture of the Weibo open class “Essentials of Business Writing”. In the next lecture, let’s talk about “How to write a stylish email subject?” 』. If you are interested in this course, please enter @workplacecoachMsYe’s Weibo homepage after 9pm on Wednesday.