Tuesday, October 30, 2012

Why does it take businesses so long to answer email?

I've noticed a disturbing pattern: whenever I send an email to a business, it takes them ages to respond.  I sent two emails - simple inquiries, the sort of questions they should expect to be asked every day - last Wednesday.  One was the equivalent of "Do you have widgets in stock, and, if so, how much do they cost?"  The other was "I bought a widget and it was missing a part. What should I do?" Still no reply.  One was sent to a general email address listed on their Contact page, the other was sent through a form on their website.

This is hardly the first time.  It has happened dozens of times in my life, including nearly every time I email Rogers. 

When I email very small businesses, they reply within a day or two.  So why on earth can't larger businesses?  If you don't have enough staff to reply to or escalate every email you receive within one business day, you're understaffed!

2 comments:

laura k said...

It happens to me all the time, too.

Based on my experience working in the private sector, I'm guessing it's because they've cut their staff down to a fraction of what they need, and everyone is completely innudated all the time, and cannot possibly keep up.

impudent strumpet said...

The weird thing is, in every single case, I ended up getting a prompt and effective response by Twitter. Which goes back to the whole thing of siloing data on third-party servers. Email is a more effective medium for tracking and monitoring customer communications, but they seem to be favouring 140 characters in an unreliably archivable medium.