Glossary Writing and sequences
What to do with an out-of-office reply
Also called Auto-reply
An out-of-office reply is an automatic response a person sets up while away, usually stating when they will be back and who to contact meanwhile.
An auto-reply is not a reply from the person, so it should not end the conversation. But sending follow-ups while they are away wastes them: they will return to a full inbox.
The useful part is the return date. A check-in timed for their first working day back is far more likely to be read.
Why it matters
- Treating an auto-reply as a real reply loses the person.
- Ignoring it sends follow-ups into an inbox nobody is reading.
- The return date gives a natural, well-timed reason to write again.
How Reach Crew handles it
Reach Crew reads the return date in an out-of-office reply and plans the check-in for the first working day after it, at 10 am in the person's time zone. It sorts every other reply as yes, a question, later or no.
Related terms
- Reply rate. Reply rate is the percentage of people you emailed who wrote back, counted per person rather than per email...
- Email sequence. An email sequence is a planned series of messages to one person, a first email followed by timed follow-ups...
- Follow-up cadence. Follow-up cadence is the number of follow-up emails you send after a first email and the spacing between them...