The renaissance of email or as we say how email responsiveness builds the trust of your clients. Who said that email is dead does maybe not know the facts. Today we are going to look into the powerful email marketing possibilities and how to succeed.
- “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, what are the hard facts telling us and how does the future look like?
By 2022, 126.7 trillion emails will be sent every year and 90% of Americans used email in 2017 this includes members of every age group.
We could experience that 91% of our young generation aged between 15-24 used emails, between 25-44 even 93%. Our Gen X and Baby Boomers grew up with emails and saw the full life span of how it improved over the century, 90% of 45-64 use email and above 65 even still 86%.
The daily habits say that 58% of people check their email first thing in the morning, even before social media, news sites, or Google. What may be changed over time is the habit to check emails on mobiles instead of desktop computers or laptops.
The question is valid is our Gen Z maybe killing email, since they are the most active generation online? The numbers tell a different story, 58% check their email several times a day, 23% once a day, 12% several times a week and 5% once a week. Only 1% never check email.
They have been asked for what they actually use emails for, 65% use it for personal, 14% use if for work and 19% use it for school or university.
But change is the only thing in life we can be sure of and email hast definitely changed over time. Today 3 companies are handling 82% of all worldwide email access. Apple (iPhone, iPad, Mail) dominates the email universe with a 44% market share followed by Google (Gmail) with 26% and Microsoft (Outlook & Outlook.com) comes to 11%. Yahoo can attract 7% of email users and the rest of 5% use something else.
Why Is Email Responsiveness Important?
It is a clear message which we need to not miss from all the emails received, 35% require a response and 23% require an immediate response. When it comes to our clients we can see that half of them expect and respond in just a view hours and 11% of them in 15min. But a surprise is that yet, the average response time for sales leads is 42 hours. These should also impact your email marketing campaign which should not stay unattended.
We should not miss the fact that it is not just the younger generations, 1 in 3 GenX and Boomers expect a response in less than 1 hour. The impact of not responding in time can lead to frustration and people feel annoyed or if responses take longer result in decreased interest.
Companies that respond to inquiries within 1 hour are more likely to qualify the lead. It has shown that companies responding within 2 hours are 7 times lesser successful and responses within 24+ will lose the lead.
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 business and eventually spend 67% more. It’s not a secret that 6 in 10 will walk away after just a few bad experiences.
But keeping up with email can be a difficult task in our busy lives. Here comes tech into the game of life. It can make it easier to stay on top of replies for us.
As a business owner, you need to establish an email culture, encourage employees to reset their Email mindset. An organized inbox is like a clean desk in the office, set the rules for goals of response time. A simple “I apologize for the delay” buys goodwill but don’t bother with excuses.
Your clients can be trained to have a more healthy conversation. When you respond consistently over time, recipients will learn when to expect a reply and feel less frustrated by delays. Organizing your working day should include the time when you can overlook your inbox for housekeeping. Working as a team should include an email response policy everyone shall follow, what is the expected response time, how to manage out of office and vacations and who takes care of shared email boxes.
Utilize technology to help you with the email tasks, out-of-office agents can tell your opponent when to expect a reply. Use an auto-reply for your offline time. To have constant answers ready utilize templates that you can store in your draft folder and copy-paste scripts rather than retyping them.
Don’t forget you are not communicating with robots, we are still all together humans. Keep a human touch, a touch of humor or personalization will humanize your interactions, even when using a prewritten script.
Win more business and earn your clients’ trust with exceptional email responsiveness, check the complete infographic from TimeToReply.
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