October 31, 2002
Blog Entry

Email Response Speed Linked to Sales

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By Managing Editor Anne Holland

Over the past few weeks I've heard the same exact comment from
every single B2B marketer I've spoken to about what makes the
difference in sales in these tough times:

"Get back to every incoming email really, really quickly."

Not within 24 hours. Not within sometime this business day.
Within a handful of minutes. Half an hour max.

The point being to catch that customer or prospect while they are
still on their computer, while they are still at their desk, before
they get distracted, and most importantly, before your direct
competitor (who prospects probably emailed 20 seconds after they
emailed you) gets back to them first.

Very often the first company to respond gets the sale.

Which is why I'm bummed by survey results announced by Jupiter this
Monday that out of 227 US companies contacted via email, 23% didn't
bother to respond within three days. Three days!

That kind of behavior hurts *all* of us, because it trains people
to not expect an answer when they email a company. Do we really
want to train our customers and prospects to not bother to contact
us via email? Do we really want to throw away sales?

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