What is Autoresponder In Outlook 365 – All You Need to Know.

Nowadays, Outlook 365 is very popular and mostly used by organizations. In large organizations, every hour on average 10 emails are received per employee. Sometimes an employee is on leave and he can’t tell everyone about his absence. In this case, he needs a mechanism where if he is not there in the office he can notify incoming emails that he is not present but received the email and shortly acknowledge the message. However, Outlook provides a feature autoresponder to automatically reply to emails. A question can arise after this “How to create an auto-reply?” and What is an autoresponder in Outlook?

What is Autoresponder in Outlook – Definition

In Outlook 365, an Autoresponder is also called an Auto-reply and out-of-office reply. However, this feature allows you to automatically send a template email response in reply to received mail.

This feature is useful when an employee is on leave or in a meeting where he can’t reply to emails. This feature also helps senders to receive a time frame specifies that when you can send the actual response. 

Need of Autoresponder in Outlook:

• Absence Notifications: When you need to Inform people that you’re not available at the workplace for various reasons such as during vacations or business trips.
• Timely response:  When you need to automate the process of acknowledgment for received emails. For example, sending an acknowledgment reply that their message has been received.
• Customer Service: When you are required to provide quick responses to common inquiries or FAQs of consumers.
• Efficient Communication: You need to maintain communication standards even when you’re not actively checking your email.

What are the Benefits of Autoresponder?

• Autoresponders help to immediately acknowledge receipt of emails, assuring the sender that their message was received.
• Beneficial for  Responding outside of work hours which helps in increasing client satisfaction.
• Sends the same message to all senders, ensuring that communication is consistent.
• Beneficial for Maintaining a professional image by alerting senders about your availability or providing necessary information.
• It Can handle a huge number of messages without requiring more human resources.
• Beneficial for automating routine inquiries, reducing the pressure on customer service or administrative workers.
• Notifies contacts when you are gone, allowing you to focus on other work without being concerned about missed conversations.
• Workload management reduces the cognitive load associated with managing and responding to repetitive or routine inquiries.

Read more: How to Export Office 365 Mailbox to PST

How to Set Auto-Reply in Outlook – Steps

There are multiple steps for different versions of Outlook. Follow these steps to enable Auto-reply in Outlook. However, you know that there are different versions of Outlook like Outlook for Windows, Outlook for Mac, and Outlook on the web.

Steps to Enable Autoresponder For Outlook For Windows (Outlook 365)

Step 1. Login to Outlook on your windows and click on the File tab placed on the top left.

Step 2. Find the Automatic replies button in the navigation pane and click on that

Step 3. Enable the Send Automatic Replies By clicking on the radio button

Step 4. Select the timings of auto-reply like when to start and when to stop.

Step 5. Write an auto-reply body for My Organization that will notify emails received from the same domain. Otherwise, you can write it in Outside My Organization which will send reply messages to everyone.

Step 6. To save the automatic reply click on the OK button.
Woohoo! You have successfully learned what is autoresponder in Outlook for Windows and How to enable it.

Note: If you didn’t select the time range for auto reply it will start immediately

Steps to Enable Auto-Reply For Outlook For Mac

Step 1. Open the Outlook Application and click the Tools menu

Step 2. After that click on the Automatic Replies menu item.

Step 3. Now enter your auto-reply message in “Reply Once to Each Sender”.

Step 4. After that check on the checkbox named “Send Automatic replies”

Step 5. Enter the time range if you need it.

Step 6. Click on OK.

Steps to setup Auto -reply for Outlook on the Web

Step 1. Login to Outlook.com and go to settings in the top right.

Step 2. In settings navigate to mail settings and click on “Automatic replies”.

Step 3. Enable the automatic replies by sliding the enabled slider.

Step 4. You can set a time range for automatic replies according to the need Otherwise write your message in the text box.

Step 5. Check the “Send replies to outside your organization” check box if you want to send replies to Everyone. Otherwise, check “only contacts”>> Click on OK and “Save”.

Woohoo! You have successfully learned what is autoresponder in Outlook on the web and how to enable it.

Scenario Based Query related to Auto-reply in Outlook

We understand the storage quota limit of only 50 GB and upgrading can cost much to users and even more if there are 60 to 70 users. In that case, we advise You to export Your Outlook Mailbox data to your local PC and restore it when you need. However, Outlook doesn’t provide any streamlined solution for exporting. 

Conclusion

In conclusion, we have seen the advantages of Autoresponders in Outlook and the working of “Auto-Reply”. However, we have also mentioned what is Autoresponder in Outlook and the steps to show how it works. Additionally, we have answered a user query via a smart and efficient tool that can save users time and extra cost.