What are Auto-responders?

By: Vadim Kirienko
Have you ever sent an email and had a message that bounced back stating that person was out of the office or was unavailable at that time, but to contact someone else at the following email address? It happens quite frequently in a world where emails are the fastest way to make contact with a co-worker, friend or loved one. Auto-responders can be great, for when you need someone to know something important, when they are trying to reach you, but they can be a problem too, when you are in urgent need to contact someone and you receive an auto-response.

Auto-responders are software programs that automatically send a response when an email is sent to an individual that has set their limits to have an auto-response. These can be as simple as you would like to make them or as complicated. Having a simple message can make things easier for those that will receive the reply email. Having an auto-response to emails that come in regarding your company can be a quick way of getting information out, before you address a specific question or problem. This works exceptionally well if you set it up on an email account that is a broad email or is specifically used to relay information to a possible customer.

Auto-responders can be added to your computer system in two ways. The first is to pay an outside company to run those for you. They can be costly, but will not take much time to program for the computer savvy company. You will just need to specify to them what you would like it to say and to which email addresses you would like it connected to. A second option is buying and installing a program that you can manipulate from your office. This takes someone who knows something about programming and some skill in using advanced programs.

Be careful when using an auto-responder for emails. If the emails are sent to a third party email address, then it can be marked as spam and deleted or sent to the trash file on the original sender's email server. When this happens repetitively, it can cause your auto-response to always be sent as spam. One way to combat these problems is to set your spam filters on low or do not set them on at all. This will open up your email to a lot of possible spam and unwanted mail.

Auto-responders can be good for the company as a whole and cut down on a lot of back and forth emails between persons. New or important information will be automatically delivered to someone who may be in need of information that is frequently ask, and will not tie up email or phone lines.