Tweet

Email response. What's your policy?

Written by: Wendy Buckingham

Article Overview: Good business relationships are about great communication and how you deal with your emails is an essential part of that communication. What may seem like a waste of time in sending responses to emails can be an important trust and relationship builder. “But I don’t have time to reply to everything”, I hear you say. Or “I pride myself on only answering what I absolutely have to” or “but I didn’t have anything to tell you yet”. Good on you for your time saving diligence, but what you are saving in time, you could well be losing in good business relationships. So read on and you'll get some distinctions that might make you think again about the benefit of email acknowledgement.

Email response. What's your policy?

I admit I’m a compulsive responder and acknowledger when it comes to emails. I send thank you notes, got it notes, get back to you soon notes, confirmation notes, and so on. 

Unfortunately people don’t always send them to me so I’m often concerned that my email might have got lost in cyberspace or is lying trapped and helpless in a spam filter.  Or I reluctantly decide that the person I’ve communicated with is either inefficient, ignorant or just downright rude. 

“But I don’t have time to reply to everything”, I hear you say.  Or “I pride myself on only answering what I absolutely have to” or “but I didn’t have anything to tell you yet”.

Good on you for your time saving diligence, but what you are saving in time, you could well be losing in good business relationships. I’d like to point out a couple of distinctions that might make you think again about the benefit of email acknowledgement.

Good communication is the basis of all relationships and poor communication results in misunderstanding and poor relationships.

I am not talking about responding to unsolicited promos or mail.  This is about email communications with clients, colleagues, suppliers and friends.

The communication cycle has three parts.  Person A communicates to person B.  Person B, responds or acknowledges the communication.  A third part also may come into play in some instances to complete the cycle where person A acknowledges person B’s response.

For instance: Fred sends an email to Mary asking for input on a project. Mary responds with the required information or says, sorry she will not be able to do it at the moment and maybe makes a suggestion.  Fred then thanks Mary for her response.  Everyone is happy and in good communication. 

If part two or three was missed the result could have been misunderstandings and upsets in Fred and Mary’s business relationship. 

When we communicate in person or on the phone the response is immediately and understood.  By email it is a different matter and if an answer or even brief acknowledgement is not sent there is an open loop. Did it actually reach its destination and was it read?

With no stable information on what is going on there is a good chance we will get annoyed, feel slighted or just assume the answer is “no”  or “yes” to any request for information.

Here are some things you can do to make sure you complete the communication cycle and that your communications receivea response.

• If you need a response to your email by a certain time, include something along the lines of “Please let me know by (date) or I will assume the answer is yes/no/you know longer want this”. Have an “awaiting response” folder in your emails, so you can keep track of answers receive.
• Reply to all emails once a day, even if it is only to say thanks, or get back to you later, and then put the email in your “follow-up” folder.
• Remember to regularly check your follow-up folder.
• Invest in an email program that can show you if your email has been received and opened.
• Never assume your communication has actually been received and read and if no response is received, be willing to make a phone call to check.

 

Related Articles
  Whats Your Companys Email Policy
  Email and Internet Usage at Work- A Right or a Privilege?
  How to Set Up Gmail to Autorespond
  How to Check E-mail Twice a Day… or Once Every 10 Days
  The fine line

Article Tags: acknowledgement, benefit, business relationships, colleagues, communication cycle, confirmation, cyberspace, diligence, distinctions, email communications, good business, mail, misunderstanding, mso, poor communication, poor relationships, promos, spam filter, span style



Related Forum Posts
Re: Hello from a San Diego-based marketer - Welcome Aaron! Whats the next stage for your business? Ben
Re: New, young entrepreneur - Congrats H20ismyLife! Do you have a website so we can see any of your work? Whats the next step for you?
Web magazine publisher - My duties 1) Research the articles that goes into each of my webzines - science fiction in all media, various sports (Yay, Lady Vols, 8th championship in 2008, by the way!) 2) Write the articles 3) Format and upload them to the web 4) Email and network various contacts to get out the word that new articles are available. 5) Email authors, actors, etc. etc. to see if they want to do interviews. 6) Advertise for more contributors - and then edit and upload their material!
Harsh reality - I am a patent agent and an entrepreneur. Two questions. Question 1: Are you willing to invest $60K and two years into this invention? If YES Question 2: How can you protect your investment? This may seem harsh but if you don't invest who will. In my opinion, a patent has zero value, (and is in fact a liability), until the invention that it protects is generating or dang close to generating revenue, with a chance for profit. A patent is an insurance policy. Like every insurance policy, you have to buy before you know what's going to happen. My typical patent preparation fee is $6-9K. Is it worth it? That depends. Is your life insurance policy worth it? That depends. The real value in any invention is the business that is built around it. If you have what it takes to build a business around an invention then filing a patent is a business decision. Like all business decisions you make it and you keep going. If it was a bad decision, you deal with it.
Personal Policy - While I have a personal policy to never do business with family or friends on that level, I do know people who have. For most, it worked out very nicely. I do believe if I were ever to reconsider my personal policy and went for it, I would ensure I had a solid commitment from the partner with a fair partnership agreement in place, drawn up by a lawyer specializing in it. As for percentage of ownership, I believe in all fairness it should be based on who is taking on more risk and also dependent upon how much time each of you will be spending managing the business. There are many factors you both need to take into consderation when making that type of decision.


Share this article with your friends. Fund someone's dream.

Leave a comment below or share on the left and you'll help support entrepreneurs in Africa through our partnership with Kiva. Over $50,000 raised and counting - Please keep sharing! Learn more.

Tweet

Newsletter

Get advice & tips from famous business
owners, new articles by entrepreneur
experts, my latest website updates, &
special sneak peaks at what's to come!

Name:
Email:

Popular Articles

African Technology Development

Ten Steps to Go from Idea to E-book for Sale

How To Be A Management Legend

Suggestions

Email us your ideas on how to make our
website more valuable! Thank you Sharon
from Toronto Salsa Lessons / Classes for
your suggestions to make the newsletter
look like the website and profile younger
entrepreneurs like Jennifer Lopez.