Writing Clients and Response Time
Over in our forum we had a question about how long to wait for a client’s response to an email. As I understood it, the writer had a new client who hadn’t responded to an email for a couple of days. The writer had started to panic a bit and wondered what to do.
There were all sorts of suggestions but as it turned out, by the next day the client had responded.
In this day and age of email, and instant messaging, we’ve come to expect a quick response from everyone. But not everyone works at that speed. I’ve got clients who will answer an emailed question in an hour and others who will take the better part of a week. And I’ve had a few who take even longer.
When I have a new client it does take a few email exchanges to discover how fast they reply, but I truly don’t worry if I don’t hear for a day or two or three. If it goes on much longer than that, I’ll call and ask what to expect.
I think it’s always appropriate to call and ask questions like how quickly should I expect a response. It can be asked lightly and most of the time this kind of communication facilitates the whole project.
Write well and often,
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2 opinions for Writing Clients and Response Time
Laura
Jun 7, 2007 at 5:29 pm
Oh, I have this same exact problem sometimes. My reaction depends on what I’m waiting for a response on. If it’s not critical to the project I give them at least 24 hours to reply (and usually more time than that).
If it’s a project-critical question that I’m waiting for, or even just an acknowledgement that they received my work in time for the deadline, I typically send an e-mail right away. I send another reminder close to the end of the day. (The end of day e-mail is good for catching people right before they leave since many people check their e-mail at the end of the day.)
I had a client who told me she would e-mail me a project late last week so that I could start her project on Monday (as soon as I finished my other work for a different client). Well, Monday came and went, and I still didn’t receive any project files from her.
I did e-mail her to make sure that she was still going to send the work. It turns out that she is sending it, however, it has been delayed by a few days. If I hadn’t e-mailed her I never would have known of the delay. However, since I now know that I have a few more days to wait I can pick up a short project or focus on my blog.
Anne Wayman
Jun 8, 2007 at 9:13 am
yep… communication is the key - on both sides.
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