Did You Get My Email?

The only thing shorter than a New York minute, is an email one.

Does this conversation sound familiar?

"Did you get my email?"

"What email?"

"The one I sent you today."

"I didn't get the email. When did you send it?"

"15 minutes ago."

So it goes. A recent survey by TargetX, an email marketing firm, indicated that 13 percent of their respondents said they'd take their business elsewhere if they don't receive a response to email within one hour. Fifteen percent said they were willing to wait up to three hours. Eight percent said they would wait six hours. Almost everyone (88 percent) expected a response within 24 hours.

To customers, waiting for an email response has become the equivalent of standing in line. This means that your company may be losing potential business if it doesn't provide an immediate response to incoming emails. It probably is losing potential business if it's not responding to emails the same day they are received.

There are several things a business can do to alleviate the potential impatience/anxiety of customers who await an immediate response to their emails:

Respond

It's a good idea to send people an email response as soon as possible -- even one that doesn't answer their specific questions or address their immediate concerns. A quick response that acknowledges that the message has been received and sets expectations for when they will be contacted again with an answer is often enough to placate, if not satisfy, an anxious inquirer.

Instruct

A lot of the emails you receive don't provide enough information for you to give an immediate answer. When offering individuals the opportunity to contact you, let them know in advance the information they need to provide to get an immediate answer.

Direct

Routing all emails through a webmaster, who divvies them out to the appropriate person, is inefficient. When soliciting emails from your web site, try to route incoming emails to the appropriate person rather than having a single individual respond to all emails. For example, sales inquiries might be sent to the appropriate sales person, based on the location of the sender.

Redirect

Give individuals an opportunity to call you if they're not getting what they consider to be a timely response. This is particularly important for customer service issues. As they strive to become more efficient, customer service departments often make themselves the most difficult individuals to contact.

Follow Up

After responding to someone's email inquiry, take the time to circle back by email, or telephone, to ensure that the individual was satisfied with your response. Did they find the product or service they were looking for, even if they did not select your company? The responses to your follow-up provide a valuable view of your company, its products, and competitors.

Phone

A May, 2003, Meta survey indicated that 80% of business people prefer communicating by email to using the phone. Nevertheless, knowing when to pick up the phone is important. If individuals provide their phone number and invite you to call them within the body of an email, consider picking up the phone. It will likely provide more goodwill than email. As one person put it:

"I prefer e-mail with people I don't care much to deal with, or don't have the time to deal with it. However when I want something, I prefer the phone because of the immediate interaction."

The challenges of email time compression can be met. Although the average person may receive more than 50 to 100 emails a day, few of them require a response. A 2002 study from the Pew Internet and American Life Project found that 60 percent of Americans who use e-mail at work receive 10 or fewer actual work-related emails per day after filtering through the unwanted Spam mails.

Nevertheless, the number of emails we receive each day is predicted to increase exponentially over the next decade with increases in Web services, wireless access, and the integration of technology.

Have any doubts about this? Email them to me. Or, email them to my cell phone. Or, email them to my wristwatch. You can do all three at my web site: http://www.onlinearts.net.

And if you do, please don't expect a response within an hour.