Boyink! - Spring Forward on the Web

When a client e-mails you a question, more often than not your first reaction is to hit “Reply.” But your response probably doesn’t answer the question he didn’t ask yet. “When a customer asks a question, there’s frequently a question behind the question,” Turmel says. If you call your client instead of e-mailing him back, you can respond to his real concern, be proactive, and prevent a barrage of e-mails that can tie up your time. Full Article>>

Oooooooohhhh….this is a pet peeve of mine!  I hate it when people return emails with phone calls! 

Why?

It breaks the trail of the conversation.  I typically work on several projects at once, and email becomes my digital memory - if I’ve asked you a question via email then email is where I’ll go back and find the answer you’ve sent.  I suspect many other people work the same way.

Phone calls are *more* interruptive than email - I can’t wait until I’m ready to deal with it, now I have to work on your schedule.

And note how the customer’s needs aren’t first with this philosophy - those customer emails aren’t “tieing up your time”, they’re getting you a sale.  Deal with it. 

Dave Jung at B2Blog brought this article to my attention (BTW, nice new look Dave).

Comments are closed, but you can read the comments other people left.

1. Dave J. on June 09, 2004

   Remember that this article is from the perspective of a salesperson.

   When a client emails to ask the dimensions of your widget, just replying with the answer doesn’t address the hidden question—the widget may be too small or big.  Miss that question and they may pick another vendor without realizing you have a larger or smaller widget available.

   The point is that the salesperson should be sensitive to the need of engaging the client.

2. Michael Boyink (Author) on June 09, 2004

   That’s true…I guess I just like to be engaged on my terms…which is usually via email.  When I’m in product evaluation mode I typically have emails out to multiple vendors, and can only coordinate the results when they’re written (good memory for things I read, terrible memory for things I hear…;).

   So maybe answer the question, mention alternatives, and offer a phone call to discuss?

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