People who don't reply to emails within 24 hours shouldn't work online!

by 53 replies
68
I'm not talking about anyone specific, but I was thinking about this a little bit more than usual the past few weeks. I have ordered a lot of services, but some customer support is seriously a joke. And I mean sole proprietors, companies with employees HAVE TO reply to an email within 12 hours even if the email is sent on December 25th.

And customer service is a huge reason why many people fail making money online. People underestimate the power of word of mouth, forums and returning customers. They can seriously make you a millionaire. The customer who you think is annoying and asks too much can later send you another customer who makes you a killing! I think there is a thin line between making thousands and millions and its in the detail. Customer service is one of those "details".

I have made well over $2mil online and most of it was because the customers simply got a better service than everywhere else. Looking at rough numbers this month, every customer I paid for(PPC, banners, solo ads) brought me 1-2 extra customers on average. Friends, colleagues, etc.

Discuss. If you have a different opinion, share it, I'm curious to hear what others think about it.
#off topic forum #emails #hours #online #people #reply #work
  • Banned
    Yeah, people with lives and off days are stupid. Let's condemn 'em all in one big sweeping statement!
    • [ 12 ] Thanks
    • [2] replies
    • The same people use their phone 24/7 to play games and check facebook...it only takes a minute to use the same phone to reply to an email.
      • [3] replies
    • With that out of the way, what about them Giants?

      fLufF
      --
  • You're right, customer service is huge. There is a difference between replying and actually solving the issue though, so I'm not sure if you mean the issue should be merely replied to or solved within 12 hours. I think in alot of cases it's reasonable to expect at least a reply within 12 hours during business hours. By reply I mean "Hey I got your message, and we are looking into it" (and I don't include an auto-response in this).

    It's extremely unrealistic to expect all issues to be solved in 12 hours. I mean, come on man.You mention Christmas, and you can't possibly expect small and medium sized companies to staff customer support on Christmas.

    For a standard priority issues most companies expect their customer service team to resolve issues within 2 business days.
    • [1] reply
    • You are right, solving the actual issue is another thing, as when there is more requests at the same time, it can't be done in 5 minutes(mostly), BUT as you said, the customer always has to know that his email was received, that people are looking into his problem. And email like that takes 1 minute to write and send, from anywhere. Because if he doesn't hear from anyone within 2 days, he will most probably suspect its scam. And I wouldn't blame him...
  • I understand the frustration, but I can see both sides to this argument. I have often reflected on how strange it is that even large companies actually don't bother returning phone calls at times. I'm not talking about taking longer than 24 hours to respond to an email; I mean it's not unusual in my experience to call a company, sometimes even more than once, to have them never return it.

    They lose money that way to be sure, but the op went way too far, as many of those companies are far bigger earners than a few million, which most here would consider super-successful. People who make "only" a million a year sometimes aren't that responsive either; I doubt their families and friends would agree that they shouldn't be in business.

    Often there is a very good reason it takes more than 24 hours to respond to an email with small businesses; such as a one person business where the proprietor takes a backpacking trip or something; many people don't touch their business on the weekend at all, etc, but it does help if they make that clear. There are also product launches that present insane challenges; sometimes because of runaway success. People have lost businesses because of too much success too fast; often very hard to predict.

    I would have missed out on some fantastic WSOs if I refused to do business with people who aren't always the most responsive. Some people are great at what they do, give fantastic value, but aren't the most organized; are going through growing pains with their help desk, etc.

    I try to cut everyone some slack, but sometimes it gets ridiculous, such as a WSO seller who offers a personal coaching upsell, then disappears for weeks on end or forever. No excuse for that, but a hard and fast rule that you shouldn't do business if you can't respond to every email within 24 hours is just plain silly. The op was just blowing off steam.
    • [1] reply
    • Ok, a backpacker is not really running an online business and I'm not offending backpackers in any way here. The backpacker is making extra bucks online. Because if somebody is running a business, he won't just dissapear for days without responding to his customers.

      And I was not saying, they HAVE to reply that fast, I was just saying that it is mostly the difference between guys making the extra buck and guys making millions. If there is a sole propietor making millions online, trust me, he is very responsive to his customers, if not, he is just an exception to the rule.

      p.s. 24 hours in online world is like 3 days in offline business. Everything is so much faster...I think 24 hours is enough for everyone to reply(not to solve the problem) to an email.
      • [1] reply
  • 12 hours?!

    Too generous.

    I expect immediate replies. In fact, I expect an immediate reply to this post from the OP. If I don't get one in 3 minutes or less, then I will know he's not serious about the WF.

    All the best,
    Michael
  • I think 6-8 hours is good. You have to sleep sometimes and if I am running a WSO there isn't anyone else to take over when I need to sleep. I don't sleep during the first 12 hours, but after that I take a break. Sorry-but that's the way it is. I love getting answers immediately, but know life happens.
  • I agree that people should reply to their customers within 24 hours
    if possible, but sometimes, it isn't. Have some patience.
  • Time's up!



    Actually, really good customer service would be to take care of all of your customer's needs before they contact you. Sure, you would need a time machine, but that's not MY problem!

    All the best,
    Michael
    • [3] replies
    • That was Legen' wait for it waaait for it DARY!

      True Story!

      I agree! People don't want to feel ignored.

      Even if you can't do the task he needs that day. Give him an answer dammit.

      When you understand that, you'll start making more money and having more customers.


      Regards, Marian
      • [1] reply
    • People have families, personal obligations and occasional emergencies, and life (outside of their business) to attend to. They also need to sleep (how dare they!! :rolleyes. Not to mention, an online business may be operating from anywhere in the world, so timezone differences also come into play.

      I agree that long delays in response from "customer support" is not good for any business, but I think 24 to 48 hours is perfectly reasonable, and at least 48 if it's a weekend or holiday. If you want to respond to support emails on Christmas day, then that's up to you. But it's unreasonable (and a bit entitled) to expect that from everyone else.

      Just because you're an "online addict" (and perhaps have no life outside of your business) doesn't mean everyone is or should be.
      • [ 4 ] Thanks
    • This is not a customer service forum.
      If you emailed me, I acan assure you, you would have a reply already.
  • There are actually very few services that should respond around the clock, and even on Christmas day. Website hosting could be considered one of them, and there you are--all bigger hosting companies have 24/7 support. As for many other things.. well this world was made by someone who intended to have the seventh day work-free. If you want to be happy you have to live in compliance with this rule.
    • [ 1 ] Thanks
  • Then you should have an army of lackies to deal with CS for you.

    I recently spent over 6 months getting PP to change my freakin address! That's all - change my freakin address!

    I'm glad I have more patience than the OP, I would have snapped by now.
    • [1] reply
    • I don't like having employees and you know whats the funny thing? I take care of CS faster than my employees did when I had them. There is no point for me to pay someone to do CS, if they are slower than me.

      Paypal's only advantage is that they don't have any real competition, thats why they can do what they are doing. But most online business have hundreds or thousands competitors in their exact niche, very similar products and pricing, so the only thing that makes the difference between them is the CS.
  • I get nervous when i don´t reply emails in 4 to 5 hours
  • Wait-a-cotton-pickin'-minute! You mean to tell me that people actually respond to customer service e-mails? When did that trend start?

    RoD
    • [ 2 ] Thanks
  • I think a response within 24-48 hours is an adequate time frame to get back to customers through email or phone message. If the (person or business) is going to be away longer than that, they should state that in a return email response or voicemail message.
    • [1] reply
    • I tend to agree with Joseph. The one thing we're all limited by as far as I know is time, and one customers deep concern may take a back seat to your families' issues. Balance is important. Of course a pattern of bad customer service is unacceptable. I started IM because of my job. I'm a Special Operations Soldier and I get deployed to some places that many Americans can't find on a map, and some times customer service suffers. *shrug* I still make as much money as I need to live a fulfilled life, albeit no where near close to your 2 Million, but then my ego is not defined by my job or how much I make, it is however defined by the happy smiles I see within my children each and every day.One last thing, not all noobies are complaining about not making money, looking at a few posts and determining that is called confirmation bias, but then since you've made so much money you would know that.
  • 24 hours is great in theory. In reality it isn't that simple. Imagine you wake up one morning with 80 people who want answers yesterday...
    • [ 1 ] Thanks
  • Social Media, technology, Instant Gratification mentality. Now, now, now!

    No wonder people keep failing in all of their goals during their life.
    • [ 1 ] Thanks
  • How is this thread an off-topic??? It is more business related than 80% of the main forum threads.
    • [1] reply
    • You are amazing. You have read 80% of the main forum threads and still have time to respond to your emails.

      Dang Man, I only read 10% of the main forum threads and don't have time for much else.

      @ Fluff. Ironic. Someone called Fluff who doesn't want foam. I personally like my blendeds with whipped cream. You know Starbucks has an app for your phone now. You get rewards for using it. Lots of free coffee and refills.

      Oh, OnlineAddict. As far as this being off topic. The main forum is where we talk about making money, not our personal viewpoints on other peoples business practices.

      I can't promise this but maybe this thread would have stayed on the Main Forum if the subject line was...

      How I Made An Extra Million By Answering My eMails Within 6 Hours, with a discussion of the benefits of being prompt with customer service.

      Any time someone starts out by saying who shouldn't work on line and the answer/s lie in doing things "my" or "your" way it just makes the poster look like he has an ego on steroids.

      IMHO

      George Wright
      • [ 2 ] Thanks
  • Given that any online business worth its salt has customers located all over the planet, it is probably unrealistic to expect a response within 24 hours, especially from smaller businesses.

    If a customer wants a response from me more or less instantly, they had better be in the same time zone as me, or be prepared to wait up half the night to coincide with my waking/working hours. The there are weekends, public holidays, vacation times, and other times when your not anywhere near your computer

    Thankfully all the people I do business with accept that I live where I do. They also accept the fact that I may be asleep when they send their request, as well as the fact they may be asleep when I respond.

    If you tell them that before they do business with you there shouldn't be any problems.
  • I'm gone sometimes for 4 days at a time. I will work online if I want to work online. My customers do not own me. I don't sell my life for a 30 dollar sale. My customers don't seem to have a problem with me not being around 24/7. If you expect someone to be around 24/7 just because you sprung twenty bucks on their product - maybe you're the kind of nightmare customer that people are asking how to deal with. in the main forum so often.
    • [ 2 ] Thanks
    • [1] reply
    • Hey Sherlock, shit happens.

      We're about to get hit with the worst storm in the history of this state. I may
      be without power for 4 days. Think I can reply to a NO-NO-NO-NO-NO-NO-NO- email?

      People with your attitude absolutely make me sick to my stomach.

      Please don't EVER become one of my customers.

      Ass hole.
      • [ 3 ] Thanks
      • [2] replies
  • I know customer service is important, because during times when mine isnt up to par, business goes down... but also online expectations can be highly unrealistic.
  • Banned
    You've made $2million yet you're still on here moaning about bad customer service because you never got an email back in prompt time?

    Why are you not sitting on a sunny beach somewhere sipping pina co ladies??

    You're weird. Go away. lol
    • [ 1 ] Thanks
    • [2] replies
    • Some guys are superfast getting back to you on skype text but never seem to answer their emails. Try them on skype
    • I'm actually on one of the nicest beaches on the planet. Well, not on it, but a 10 minute walk from it.
  • As an "OnlineAddict" who holds such a philosophy, it may be a beaming opportunity to assess the other areas of your life which may be lacking.

    If you'd like a no-obligation, psychiatric consultation my doors are open.

    Drop me an email and I'll get back to you in 2 days.
  • Most sites now have an autoresponder set up, to at least let you know that your email has been received, and this is an easy thing to do. At least the sender knows that the email is has been received. Personally I like to answer an email fast as I can, and can usually manage it , within 24 hours.

    I would say 90% of the time I have asked someone a question by email about a product I have gto a reply within 24 hours, so I have no complaints!

    I think speed depends on the product being sold, i.e if it's something like, Hosting or important software, you want a quick reply, if it's an ebook then it's not so urgent!
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    People who don't reply to emails within 24 hours shouldn't work online!

    I'm not talking about anyone specific, but I was thinking about this a little bit more than usual the past few weeks. I have ordered a lot of services, but some customer support is seriously a joke. And I mean sole proprietors, companies with employees HAVE TO reply to an email within 12 hours even if the email is sent on December 25th. And customer service is a huge reason why many people fail making money online. People underestimate the power of word of mouth, forums and returning customers. They can seriously make you a millionaire. The customer who you think is annoying and asks too much can later send you another customer who makes you a killing! I think there is a thin line between making thousands and millions and its in the detail. Customer service is one of those "details".