Do You Suck at Email?

Recently I have been wondering more and more about what are the current thoughts around email etiquette. Not with regards to how do you draft your emails, what you say or how you say it, but what are the current expectations regarding responses, response time, follow-up and basic communication. If I send out an email to someone following up on a conversation, or to check in with someone, there is an expectation for a response. But after a couple of non-responses, I began to wonder if it was just me who was wondering if common courtesy had completely fallen by the wayside. Has the age of electronic made it easier for us to connect or to ignore each other? Am I way out in left field by myself thinking that a response should be forthcoming?

Just like anyone else, I’m busy and am not always able to answer right away, but it’s always been my policy to try and respond within 24 hours and no later than 48 hours, even if it’s just to acknowledge receipt of one’s email and to let them know I will provide them with a more detailed response later. Other than spammers or auto-generated responses, I have never felt that it was okay to just completely ignore an email with no response. Given that everyone is busy, I also do not send out unnecesary or lengthy, overly wordy emails. Am I mistakenly under the assumption that email is still a communication tool? As a Virtual Assistant, email is a critical tool for communicating with clients from any location. This is one of the advantages of working with a Virtual Assistant…that one can be traveling the globe and still receive crucial assistance for their business. But we still need to be able to communicate and email is a prime way for doing that.

I took a little look around the ‘net to see if their were some newly published top secret email etiquette rules out there that I had missed out on. In fact, I found a post over at Business Email Etiquette which addressed not only my exact issue but validated my feelings about these non-responders. Here is what it said:

By not making the Sender aware you are away with a courteous away message, the Sender will assume their e-mail is received and if not responded to promptly, in your view, not a priority.

If you are so busy that you cannot respond at all (you’re there but not “away” to require an away message be in place), you are in fact deciding to ignore the Sender — even if for the time being — and that’s exactly what they will assume. You’ve made a decision that their e-mail is not important to you or you would have responded.

Exactly! Perception is everything. As technology has advanced making it easier to communicate with the flick of a finger and the click of button, we are slowly losing our ability to acknowledge that all this technology is still human-driven. There’s a person behind every message sent and a non-response has become one way to give someone the virtual finger. I find it ironic though as more and more people jump into social networking and media with all this evangelism about making connections and creating relationships, that people are failing to also see that email is still a part of that web. Your “virtual” presence can be everything when you primarily do business from afar.

As a Virtual Assistant, I’m here to help, so here are my suggestions for how busy people can make responding to email a little quicker when time is short:

1. Even if it’s just one line…send a response. It can be as short as “Hey, I received your email, will respond shortly.” That’s takes like two seconds folks.

2. Create a template email for those quick responses, especially if they are responses you find yourself sending often.

3. Get a Virtual Assistant. They can help with your email morass more than anyone. HOWEVER, you must still be able to communicate with your Virtual Assistant on a regular, consistent basis in order to get the most value out of the relationship. I think this is where so many VA-Client relationships fall apart…but that’s another post.

What is your email response policy? How do you handle non-responses?

3 Comments

  1. Kim,

    Great blog entry!

    When I receive an email, my own email policy is to reply right away with a short acknowledgement or the full answer. If I cannot respond quickly or briefly, or if the email requires a more substantial reply, I will flag that email or mark it unread (Outlook or Express) and clear that out before the day’s end with a response of some kind. Often, that reply will just be a ‘Thank you’ or hopefully, I will have the answer the requester is seeking.

    If the recipient does not reply fairly promptly, I will eventually resend the email within 24-48 hours with a polite note that I am waiting for a reply and that I have not heard back…not sure if they received it (which is sometimes the case). If I still don’t hear back, I pick up the phone and call.

    Lack of email etiquette happens all too easily because it is just too simple NOT to reply.

    I will also use the auto-reply and delivery reply features in Outlook for those clients I know will not respond right away via email. It seems that when I set that reply feature, it prompts most to hurry the response.

    Janine
    YourVirtualWizard.com
    PS..I replied here right away! FYI!

  2. Love it, Kimberly,

    Yes, so many people now find it acceptable to not respond to emails. I’m amazed and appalled. Where did good manners go? If I don’t respond, it’s because I didn’t get it. I can get 300+ emails in a day, and I hate it, but I go through them. I respond to the ones I have to or assign them to someone on my staff. Our policy is that all email (and phone msgs) has to be responded to within 24 hrs.

    I’m sharing your blog post with some of my “friends”. lol.

    Best,

    ~ Lizz

  3. There is obviously a lot to know about this. I think you made some good points in your article.

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