Tuesday Evening

Eating Beef Ribs
and watching "The Hunting Party", be very careful what you wish for, you just might get it. Very interesting movie even though I had never heard of it. Thank goodness for the FREE cable trial.

Well, last night I mentioned that tonight we'd be addressing E-mail Etiquette. Boring. How many times has that subject been posted/broached/addressed/covered? Whatever you want to call it...

I was genuinely hoping that someone would post remarks here since a blog was the number one requested item on our survey. I know it takes time for people to get interested but this place is for you to post your ideas and thoughts about whatever you want to talk about.
Pose a question. Comment on my post. Write me an e-mail about something you want to talk about and we'll open a new forum...

So what are your concerns with e-mail? When you send customers e-mails about sales, back-ordered items, etc. What do you consider is a long enough amount of time to wait for a response? How do you handle an e-mail that has not gotten a response? Do you resend the original e-mail? Write a new e-mail? Call the client?

I'll start with what I do (as a general rule, of course some exceptions apply):

1. When writing the e-mail be as specific as possible.

• What you want.
• When you need a reply.
• Ask the person to let you know they actually received the e-mail if need be.
• Embed or attach a picture or document to help make your point or give the receiver a visual perspective.

2. Be as short as possible.

• One sentence per idea is usually best.
• One paragraph (two at the most) seems to be all people have time to respond to these days.

3. If there is no rush, I usually wait 5 (five) to 7 (seven) days for a response. Then I usually generate a new e-mail and paste the previous correspondence in the newly generated e-mail. I add a new note stating: I sent you this last week, just checking to see if you got it. And I explain Sometimes AOL (America Online) doesn't always send or let me receive all e-mail posts so I am trying to verify that you actually received my original post. If the person does not respond to the second e-mail, I call them.

4. If there is a rush, I try to send the e-mail at night and make sure you state the e-mail is urgent. I do this hoping the receiver gets the e-mail first thing in the morning. Most people respond to e-mails when they first sit down at their desks in the morning. I give the person one full day to answer especially if I stated the e-mail needed an immediate response. If the person has not responded by the next morning. I call them.

Please note that this only applies to Monday through Friday posts. I try to take into consideration that everyone is extremely busy and isn't ignoring me, they just don't always have time to respond quickly.

Even though I attempt to answer every single e-mail we get within several hours of receiving it, that does not mean others have the same time or philosophy that I do. I believe a happy client is a returning client. Even if I do not have the answer someone is looking for, I tell the person, "let me check on that and I'll get back to you." There is nothing wrong with not knowing the answer to something and explaining that you need to find the answer lets the client or customer know you're working on the problem. It never hurts to tell someone you're trying...

So what are your thoughts...? Feelings? Ideas? We, The Hole Bead Shoppe, would love to hear from you.

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Write us at theholebeadshop [!at] aol [!dot] com

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xxoo
K~