The Renaissance of Email: How Responses Build Trust

News Outlets Have Been Proclaiming The Death of Email for Over a Decade

• “Email Is Dead” — Fast Company, July 1, 2007
• “Email has had a good run as king of communications. But it’s reign is over.” — Wall Street Journal, Oct 12, 2009
• “Email is dying. That’s pretty much accepted as a fait accompli in Silicon Valley. It will take a few more years for it to sink in everywhere else.” — Phil Libin, CEO of Evernote, The Telegraph, May 26, 2015
• “Email and cash are dead in China” — Forbes, Aug 18, 2019

Is Email Really Dead?

• By 2022, 126.7 trillion emails will be sent every year
  • 90% of Americans used email in 2017 — Including members of every age group
    • 15-24: 91%
    • 25-44: 93%
    • 45-64: 90%
    • 65+: 86%
  • 58% of people check their email first thing in the morning — before social media, news sites, or google
• Is Gen Z Killing Email?
  • Gen Z spends more time online than any other generation
    • 45% are online “almost constantly”
    • 44% are online multiple times a day
  • How often does Gen Z check email?
    • 58% several times a day
    • 23% once a day
    • 12% several times a week
    • 5% once a week
    • 1% never check email
  • What does GenZ use email for?
    • Personal: 65%
    • Work: 14%
    • School: 19%
  • But that doesn’t mean email hasn’t changed over the years
    • Today, just 3 companies handle 82% of all email access
      • Apple (iPhone, iPad, Mail): 44%
      • Google (Gmail): 26%
      • Microsoft (Outlook & Outlook.com): 11%
      • Yahoo: 7%
      • Other: 5%

Out of all the Emails Received, 35% Require a Response — 23% Require an Immediate Response

Why Is Email Responsiveness Important?

• When do clients expect a response?
  • Nearly half expect a response in just a few hours
    • 15 minutes: 11%
    • 1 hour: 19%
    • 4 hours: 14%
  • YET, the average response time for sales leads is 42 hours

It’s Not Just Younger Generations — 1 in 3 GenX and Boomers Expect a Response In Less Than An Hour!

• What If You Don’t Respond Quickly?
  • Response time is a nonverbal cue to your clients
    • When you fail to meet someone’s expected response time
      • They may feel frustrated or annoyed
      • They pay more attention to nonverbal cues
    • Longer response time tends to decrease interest
  • Response Time Impacts Sales
    • Companies that respond to inquiries within 1 hour are more likely to qualify the lead
      • 7X more successful than those who take 2 hours
      • 60X more successful than those who take 24+ hours
    • Responsiveness Builds Repeat Business
      • 80% of Americans say speed, convenience, knowledgeable help, and friendly service are the essential elements of positive client experience
        • When their expectations are met, customers are 80% more continue using a business — and eventually spend 67% more
      • BUT, 6 in 10 will walk away after just a few bad experiences

Keeping Up With Emails Can Be Difficult — Tech Can Make It Easier To Stay On Top of Replies

Improving Your Response Time

• Encourage Employees To Reset Their Email Mindset
  • Organize Their Inbox: Find a system to keep the chaos to a minimum, so you can always find what you’re looking for
  • Set A Goal: Each employee to should work toward a response time goal — and always strive for improvement
  • Apologize If They Fall Behind: A simple “I apologize for the delay” buys goodwill — don’t bother with excuses
• Set Clear Expectations For Email Responsiveness
  • Train Your Clients: When you respond consistently over time, recipients will learn when to expect a reply and feel less frustrated by delays
  • Schedule Checks: Set specific times of day to dig into the inbox — For shared inboxes, stagger employees to check-in throughout the day
  • Create An Email Policy: What is your expected response time? How are vacations covered? How many emails (max) can sit in a shared inbox?
• Use Tech For Fast & Easy Responses
  • Auto Replies: Give clients the satisfaction of knowing their email has been received, and a timeframe of when to expect a full response to their inquiry
  • Quick Replies: Create scripts to answer FAQs and general inquiries, rather than rewriting the same information repeatedly — Just copy and paste
  • Text Expander: Save even more time by creating text macros that are triggered by typing a few keywords — No need to find, copy, and paste your script

Maintain a Human Touch — It Will Humanize Your Interactions, Even When Using a Prewritten Script

• Measure Your Progress
  • Responsiveness is essential, how do you know you’re exceeding client’s expectations?

Win more business and earn your clients’ trust with exceptional email responsiveness — Try TimeToReply

Sources:

https://www.entrepreneur.com/article/244751
https://blog.happyfox.com/dramatically-improve-response-time/
https://www.forbes.com/sites/cherylsnappconner/2013/08/16/why-every-organization-needs-a-standard-response-time-policy/#4e6e13d82e02
https://hbr.org/2011/03/the-short-life-of-online-sales-leads
https://www.fastcompany.com/60037/email-is-dead
http://gsb.haifa.ac.il/~sheizaf/KalmanRafaeliChronemics2011.pdf
https://www.entrepreneur.com/article/244751
https://www.toistersolutions.com/blog/2018/4/15/how-fast-should-a-business-respond-to-an-email
https://optinmonster.com/is-email-marketing-dead-heres-what-the-statistics-show/
https://www.criteo.com/insights/gen-z-social-media/
https://www.campaignmonitor.com/resources/guides/guide-to-gen-z-marketing-2019/
https://www.statista.com/statistics/456500/daily-number-of-e-mails-worldwide/
https://www.forbes.com/sites/rebeccafannin/2019/08/18/why-email-and-cash-are-dead-in-china/#1e34fbac3b0b
https://www.telegraph.co.uk/finance/newsbysector/mediatechnologyandtelecoms/11629237/Evernote-takes-on-Microsoft-and-Google.html
https://www.wsj.com/articles/SB10001424052970203803904574431151489408372