Why You Should Answer Email Inquiries Within 15 Minutes | Travel Research Online

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Why You Should Answer Email Inquiries Within 15 Minutes

Face it, we’re an impatient breed of animal. I ordered some note pads this morning on Amazon and to be honest, I am a little ticked I need to wait until tomorrow for the delivery. And had Amazon pushed me to Saturday or Monday, I probably would have stopped by my local Office Depot to pick up a pack over the weekend.  Because of the delay, I likely would have lost interest in the purchase.

The same goes for email.

Promptly responding to the emails you receive is crucial. Why?

It builds trust with the recipient.

Here are some stats to ponder. Nearly half of all Americans check email first thing in the morning just after waking up (I do). 35% of all email needs an answer. And 25% of those need a quick answer. So, assume you receive 25 emails overnight, 9 of them will require an answer, and 2 of those answers need to be addressed quickly. Will you be there?  Or will you put it off and allow your client or prospect to lose interest in the inquiry?

Coming out of a pandemic, we cannot afford to let one single prospect slip away because we are sloppy.

In business, 11% of the people expect an answer within 15 minutes; 19% within the hour; and 14% will wait 4 hours. The average response time for a business?

42 hours.

Time is money. For every minute you don’t respond to your customer’s email, the more disinterested they grow. When you fail to give them what they want in a quick manner, they’ll feel frustrated and annoyed. We need to avoid frustrated and annoyed customers.

An unsourced study has said that sales inquiries that are responded to within an hour are seven times more likely to result in a sale than a response of two hours. See, we are an impatient species!

Of course, a 15-minute response time makes no sense in the middle of the night and expected responses should only be during expected business hours. But, for those middle of the night emails, the clock starts ticking when you pour that first cup of joe!

Here’s one final stat for you.  If you initially meet a client’s expectations, they are 80% more likely to continue working with you.  This makes sense. Meet the expectation and it is an open invitation to meet the next one. Their chore of finding help has essentially ended. Right?

Time is money; and being responsive is critical. More so now than ever before.

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