Email autoresponder

Exchange 2000- we have set up an email enabled account to handle incoming claims. Now, its been requested that I set up an autoresponder to respond to all email coming in to this address. Nobody will ever log into this email account. What would be the best way to get this done? I tried logging with the accounts username, and setting up a rule to reply with a template when email arrives. This rule works internally, but I have tested a few external accounts, and it does not work….