Are holding letters not a thing anymore ?

[hattie43]

I have been waiting over a week for a response to an email I sent to someone I engage in a professional capacity . There is no out of office set up . He may be on holiday , he may think my enquiry is not important , he may be snowed under and cannot answer at the moment , it may have gone in his junk folder for the first time . I just don’t know . Given my question is about something I need to submit to another organisation I would like a response but clearly don’t want to irritate . When I was working we sent a holding message just to let the recipient know we’d received their message and have an answer within the week. Maybe it’s not a thing anymore .

I usually send an acknowledgement/holding letter if I can’t respond to someone immediately.

I'm not aware it's ever been a thing unless you're on holiday and put an out of office message on.

I'm 53 and I've never heard of a holding letter. I would say most people just set an out of office message.

Same. Never heard of a holding letter. If I’m out of office there’s a message if not I will get to you as soon as I can. When I email someone for something I need that has a deadline I include that in the email so the person knows I’m working towards something and it’s not something that can wait 3 weeks

I've had this with someone I pay once a year to do a service for me.

I have in the past sent him an email with important information in, not heard anything back for weeks and find out, when I finally contact his office by phone to find out why I haven't heard from him, that my email 'seems to have gone missing'.

It's happened a couple of times so yes, it would be really helpful to get an acknowledging email from them to let me know they've received my initial email.

I'm sure it used to be standard for a lot of companies I've dealt with in the past.

Nope never heard of that. I expect it’s got buried in his junk folder and has been auto deleted.

Out of office auto replies seem to have gone in the "can't be bothered" category like so many other things. It's ridiculous.

I've not had a holding reply from many people except the super polite ones - in the whole of my working life, I'd say

Pick up the phone and call them.

I always send holding responses if I know something is going to take longer than a couple of days.

Trying to indoctrinate it into my team of circa 50, no luck so far. They tend not to respond to emails unless someone chases them.

I always do this at work. OP doesn’t mean a formal holding letter, just a quick response of ‘Thanks for your enquiry, I will get the relevant info back to you by the end of the week/in a week/ in 2 weeks etc’ If it’s a fairly quick response I deal with it either then and there or in the next day or so and I might then not send such a holding response- but if it a going to be longer than that I always do. It takes 2 seconds, literally, and stops people emailing my back in 4 days saying ‘did you get my email??’. I have noticed that many others do not do this, though.

I think it is one of the courtesies that has fallen by the wayside or people feel too busy to bother with. If you have never received an out of office reply before then you can't know whether they actually use them. I think you need to call and speak to them. Or if that call goes to voicemail ring the switchboard and ask if they are on holiday or away from the office for another reason. I can understand why you might not want to pester but you need to know if this is going to cause you to be late for someone else.

I frequently forget, but I ask people when I can expect x or y even if they can't give an exact date. It tends to focus their mind and I know when to start reminding them.

I send them but increasingly realise that others do not.. People expect you to be a mind reader ..it sucks

Some people get snowed under with emails at times. Resend then give him a call if you don't hear back.

@Starseeking "they tend not to respond to emails unless someone chases them"

I find a lot of people are like this now

It probably gets taught as some kind of email handling technique but then they seem quite affronted when you chase them. It's usually the people with the least to do who get upset about it IME.

i'm freelance and when I politely suggested to one group that they use out of office when they go on holiday, they acted like it was the most exciting suggestion anyone had ever made. I thought they were taking the piss....Then they actually did it! (I sound like Cliff Tan 😂) And I realised that the suggestion hadn't been made to them before.... I don't understand how these basic things have fallen out of the window.

There's sometimes little point in looking at your query, not actually resolving it, and replying that you will do at some specified or unspecified time.

I'd much rather they just got back to me with with the answer. If we were both in a similar professional seniority.

Though as a PA/ office manager I sometimes responded immediately to a colleague who requested help to say I was doing it or when I would. I guess that's because that was basically my job to service their requests.

I know what a holding letter is OP. We used to send them back when letters were a thing.

For email, yes, if it's something I can't respond fully to within a couple of days, I'd reply to confirm receipt and give a timescale for a full response. under promise and over deliver