You call someone and leave a message. How quickly should that person return your call?
You email someone. How quickly do you expect a reply?
How about a text?
I have no answers today. I’m just curious. What’s your rule? Is your rule the same regardless of medium? Or should you return a text faster than an email or call?
My friend, Erica, posted this on Facebook yesterday:
Maybe my number one pet peeve…people not responding to emails or texts. Especially texts. Makes me feel unvalued and not important to them. Do you feel that way about it? What’s your biggest pet peeve?
The answers were interesting, and the discussion was active, but I got more interested in the timeline for a proper reply.
I try my hardest to return every phone call, email and text, but sometimes it takes a couple days. I will say this: We are working on a system in our company to dramatically improve this. It’s going to be expensive, but it’s going to be a great investment in our responsiveness.
In the meantime, I have this, at least, at the bottom of every email: ** PLEASE NOTE: I have begun checking email only three times per day to be more valuable to my clients, partners and family. If it’s an emergency, please call. **
That said – are there any hard and fast rules? And if so, who decides them? Some think tank in Switzerland or something?
I know people who – when leaving them a message or sending them an email – shock me when they even bother to return or reply … and I continue to work with them. I guess that’s my problem, eh?
They argue that there aren’t enough hours in the day to answers all the calls or return all the emails. Last time I checked one guy’s inbox, he had about 14,000 emails in there and 8,000 of them were unread.
Or, maybe they’re right, if someone reaches out with an unsolicited request, do you owe them anything? My aforementioned colleagues don’t think so.
What about you?
And how long do you take? Leave your take in the comments for this post.
Thanks!
I try to return emails, texts and calls fairly quickly. I don’t like having anything lingering in my inbox. But another thing I just recently started doing is responding with at least a thanks or yes or no when I get a response to my question or email. I think it’s polite to acknowledge the resolution of the topic. And if I don’t have an answer right away, I will send a brief response back that I’m going to get back to them when I know more. Again, it’s just polite. And we all need a little more politeness in our lives?
Hi ya Tim
That is a good question
So here I am; typing a response to someone who sent me something! (Grin with tongue in cheek)
For me – and all my enterprises, I rank the answer to that in accordance to the level of familiarity i have with that person.
Level one: If it’s my wife I answer instantly. We run businesses together and we are very close, and she wants an immediate response from me many times – it seems like many times a day. There are many like that – my children and grandchildren.
Level two: people I do business with that amounts to a lot of money. I get to these before within the close of business. Or send a quickie note saying I will call them in the morning or answer the email in a day or so.
Level three things that are important but not urgent – I get to those maybe the next day or two.
Level four not urgent or important but it would be polite to give them an answer. I try to do those as time permits.
Level five – those I just ignore and delete or delegate it to some that works for me.
Level six is spam. I hate spam.
But a thought here… Email is meant to serve me not me be a slave to it. The phone is meant to be a tool to use, to make my life easier, and better – but not meant to intrude into my life. So I control it. I do not ever answer my phone while I am talking with someone, or put someone on hold, or tell someone I will call them back to take another call. I think those is rude. I try to do one thing at at a time.
I shut my phone off from 2pm -3pm each day during my nap. I don’t care what on earth is happening – it can wait till my siesta is over. I shut it off at bedtime. And I shut it off anytime I come home and Barbie has Nora Jones music playing.
For me, texts generally are the longest for me to respond to. I’m female and I work. Like most females, I don’t have my phone attached at my waistband and it is always on silent while I’m at work. I often check them at lunch unless I work through lunch and don’t think about it. I never intend this to imply someone who sends me a text isn’t important, but the text does come behind work during work hours. Too, if someone is trying to reach me during work hours for something that’s important, don’t text… call.
I try to respond quickly (roughly when I get the text or can get the answer to a text), within a day for an email (I do like you signature about checking email – that seems appropriate and is clearly communicated – something I’m thinking about adopting) and calls vary. Clay makes a good point about the different importance (personally) of those to whom I’m responding
In my little world, I typically follow the following priority:
Txt message: I typically answer immediately, or I won’t likely even remember that I have a text message
Email: I try to answer urgent work email within the same hour, because that tends to be the primary communication tool at work. I don’t like it, but I don’t have a lot of option on that one. Client emails I work to return in the same half of the day that it was sent. Unsolicited emails get prioritized when I can get to them…sometimes days or weeks later.
Voicemail: I check voicemail a couple of times per day, then try to respond based upon urgency. I do try to respond to all voicemail.
I’m a people pleaser by nature, and all this communication makes it hard for me to #1 get my non-urgent, important things done and #2 say No To A Thousand Things (which was a great post that I need to somehow internalize).
This is a great question and I’m interested in reading what others write. I try and always reply to texts and e-mails within the day but I’m horrible with phone messages. That is something I definately need to work on.
I am, admittedly, not so great at this. But I really wanted to respond to Erica’s comment about texts. You really need to understand the person your texting, because I, for one, do not live with my cell phone on me all the time, and often don’t even notice texts until someone calls me and asks if they got their text. Well, no. Why the hell didn’t you just send an e-mail, which goes everywhere — computer, phone, webmail — rather than a stupid text?
I’m sure it’s likely generational or cultural or something like that, but don’t assume that YOUR favored form of communication is someone else’s. In fact, at the risk of seeming pushy, why not assume that it’ll take two forms of reaching out to get a prioritized response, such as leaving a voicemail AND an e-mail?
Where this really gets bad is Social Media. Somehow, there’s a bunch of Social Media folk out there who assume that because they are constantly wired to twitter and Facebook, they rest of the world ought to be as well. I had one client get blindsided by a young activist who assumed that a 24-hour lag in response time somehow equated to dodging the question, never mind the fact that this lady was actively engaged in, like, running a business and raising kids vs. sitting in a coffee shop and firing off tweets at one’s leisure.
So… let’s all just give people the benefit of the doubt, try to figure out THEIR preferred form of communication, and perhaps not jump the gun on different frequencies and speeds of exchange. Of course, this doesn’t really go for people who are paying you money or people you pay money too. But for everyone else, why not try that?
Let me preface this by saying that my business is all about providing outstanding customer service… so, with that said, I do my level best to return every call and respond to every email within 24 hours. To my clients, I respond within 4 hours (during working hours). Everyone, I believe, deserves a response…even if they have reached out with an unsolicited question, query, or comment. I believe we all deserve to be heard. Mary Kay Ash said: “Everyone has an invisible sign hanging from their neck saying, ‘Make me feel important.’ Never forget this message when working with people.”
I only receive texts from clients, close friends, and family. They all receive immediate responses.
Another thought, if you’re getting that many emails and calls that you’re so overwhelmed you should consider hiring an assistant so you have some support. You don’t have to do it all yourself. Just my thoughts…
I am retired so I don’t do business texts. But I do try to keep in touch with friends/family. I think the “rules” can be different between business associates/acquaintances and friends/family. I think texts from family/friends should always be returned and should be returned as quickly as possible. Seems like common courtesy to me.