Email isn’t dead yet, so no excuses! It’s time to check your email. Whether you work for a professional organization, or yourself, you need to be checking your email daily. It’s 2009 and it’s time to embrace this technology that was used regularly in the 90’s and still is used today. It’s fine if you are relying upon the telephone as your favorite social networking tool, or even snail mail for social interactions, but for all matters related to work, you need to make sure you are also checking your email on a daily basis.
One of the great things about email is that it can be read at one’s leisure, regardless of the time of day. While this is true, you should know that a reply should be sent within 24 hours, even if it’s just to say “I’ll get back to you.” Failure to check your messages regularly or to respond sends a message (without a single keystroke) of “I have poor customer service and communication skills.”
For those of you that “don’t have time” to check your email I have bad news for you. You need to make the time. If you can’t, don’t bother distributing your email address. Emails aren’t sent with the intent of them being read or replied to 3 weeks later.
Problems with email access at your place of work? I’m sorry to say that you need to check your email at home, your phone, or a public computer. Certainly a separation of home from work life is important so maybe just take a note of who emailed you and then call them back the next business day if you aren’t willing to do email at home. But again, if you aren’t willing to make some type of a compromise, don’t distribute your email address.
For those of you who have experienced the challenges of unread email by those you employ because that’s “just not how they operate” I can only offer this suggestion: specify in future contracts that email should be checked and responded to regularly. Sure it’s possible that someone may not have access to email every day of their life, but you should at minimum expect employees to check their email a couple of times a week.
If you are looking for more detailed information to share with those you employ or even for yourself, check out Business E-mail Etiquette
I recommend easy to use, free tech services and resources that I've personally used/tested. I select free tech tools to review based upon my past & current work with various non-profit organizations in which I provide(d) a wide variety of tech support services including general tech consulting, web design, database dev, and elearning. Additionally, I like to help those new to technology learn more through tips and simple explanations.
I remember reading “rules” a year or two ago that said one should not expect a reply to email for 48 hours and that you should call if you want faster communication – NOT. I find it takes longer to get telephone call backs.
It’s so true that “emails aren’t sent with the intent of them being read or replied to 3 weeks later”. Thanks for the reminder that attention to detail and being professional yield great results.