Why Don’t People Reply to Business E-mails?

Because they lack business savvy? Because they don’t realize the importance of promptly responding to business e-mails? Because they do not realize that answer business e-mails in a timely manner is basically a customer service issue? I could go on…

At least a couple requests come in each day inquiring about what a person is to think when they don’t get a reply to their e-mails. The natural inclination being “they are not interested in my e-mail” or “they are ignoring me.” That’s not necessarily the case — their lack of reply may have nothing to do with you, more so it has to do with them!

We live in a me, me, me – busy, busy, busy world. I see this mentality increasingly carrying over to business communications to the exclusion of proper business practices risking perception. The idea that you can get to e-mail when you want, reply to only those you deem important can be an attitude that you’ll eventually regret. Regret that will kick in when those contacts, associates or partners stop sending you e-mail!

What I do, when I run into those who don’t respond to e-mails, is to step back and think “outside of Judith”. Most are not into this whole “e-mail etiquette thing” like I am –many time to their detriment. Some even thinking I invented e-mail etiquette (yeah, I was right next to Al Gore when he “invented” the Internet). So I always try to look at their motives, or lack there of, before I assume. Maybe they are out of town, crazy busy, having business crisis. But, if they are habitual non-repliers — I stop e-mailing.

Let’s face it, it is simply good business to take the time to e-mail those who take the time to e-mail you (of course not including obvious spam). So, how do you handle non-repliers?

Discretion is Critical in Business E-mail Communications

Discretion:

• Freedom to act or judge on one’s own
• Knowing how to avoid embarrassment or distress
• Refined taste; tact
• The power of making free choices unconstrained by external agencies
• The trait of judging wisely and objectively

O.K., so based on the above, one can easily surmise how much discretion comes into play when it comes to your business e-mail activities. Just a few examples off the top of my head of not using discretion when on the job:

• Forwarding a private e-mail sent to you by a coworker to others without the sender’s knowledge.
• Forwarding “warm and fuzzy” e-mails that state to “Send to Everyone You Know” using your business e-mail address.
• Sending attachments without the courtesy of asking first or confirming preferred file format.
• Using company e-mail lists to ask who stole your lunch out of the break room.
• Using company e-mail to visit personal sites and send non-business related e-mails.

I can go on and on. When it comes to discretion, I do believe that those who fail to use their discretionary powers when using e-mail for business communications, are viewed as doing just that. Those who don’t think before they do, by using discretion, more times than not are perceived as lacking tech or business savvy, courtesy and in some cases credibility and education are brought into question.

With business e-mail, you need to consciously use your discretion at all times to ensure you are perceived as a consummate professional and one that associates, customers, clients and management alike appreciate, can trust and rely on and look forward to communicating with.

Discretion could very well be one of the most important tools we have at our disposal to ensure we leave the impression we desire that is critical to our long term business success. Don’t you agree?

E for E-mail Etiquette and Efficiency

The fact is that integrating solid e-mail etiquette skills in your day to day business e-mail activities will help to make you a more efficient communicator. Those who you e-mail regularly will appreciate these efforts as you will help to make doing business with you easier and them more efficient as well.

I thought about this today as I was answering my overflowing inbox where I found e-mails that made replying difficult, requests that had already been answered asking where my answers were and inquiries that were vague at best. This caused me to have to dig out my previous replies and resend them to the same individuals, ask questions for information to better clarify the request so I could answer with confidence added with the chore of having to weed through previous back and forth to figure out what was new that I was supposed to respond to.

These type of e-mails took more of my time to have to respond to and made me inefficient. As is usually the case, I thought “this will make a great topic for Business E-mail Etiquette!” Here are the issues that I took note of today that made both sides spend more time than necessary with their e-mail communications — all of which can easily be resolved with minuscule effort.

1. Before responding to a e-mail, order your e-mails by Sender. This will help you see any subsequent e-mails on the same topic that you can then easily combine into just one e-mail reply. Minimizing the number of e-mails is a benefit to everyone involved.
2. On that same note, consolidate your thoughts and put them in one e-mail using a bulleted list as I am doing here. Sending numerous e-mails with just one thought, concern or question takes unnecessary time for the Sender to send and the Recipient to have to weed through.
3. Down-editing your replies is the sign of a tech savvy skilled communicator. Always remove what is no longer necessary to the conversation. Only leave what you are specifically replying to so the person on the other side knows what your comments correspond to. To have to review an entire email looking for the one spot where you inserted a “no” as your answer reflects a lack of concern for the time of the person you are communicating with.
4. Before assuming that a request was not acknowledged or processed, check your inbox, trash or spam folders to make sure that you did not in fact receive the desired response or information before you send off an accusatory follow-up. Add important contacts to your address book or whitelist to ensure your contact’s e-mails can get through any filtering your software may have in place.
5. When making an request, be sure to do your best to include all the possible information the other side will need to assist you. The more time you take to provide all the necessary details and information that the other side will need to respond to your request, the faster you will receive the response you desire.

These are just the 5 things that stuck out today that caused me lost time and efficiency. Clearly Business E-mail Etiquette serves to assist all involved in using the least amount of time tapping away at these keyboards thereby freeing us all up to have more time to do our jobs and run our businesses.

What can those you communicate with do to help make you more efficient?

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