Respond Now... What are You Waiting For?

I'm still completely shocked at the number of organizations that don't answer emails sent to them from their website or to the contacts listed on their website. Do these companies realize that in all likelihood they just lost a customer by not responding or did damage to their brand?

A case in point was that almost a year ago I was conducting a search for a PR agency. I created a short list of 5-7 agencies through recommendations, Google searches and looking at who got coverage for other companies in our space. Seems like a typical process that many would use in such a search. I reached out to these firms by contacting them through their website to get additional information and to see if they would make the short list of 3 firms that I'd like to meet face-to-face.

I was worried at the time that I had started with too many agencies and that my search would drag on for too long. To my absolute surprise, 2 or 3 of these agencies never responded making the creation of the short list much easier than I thought as they were immediately removed. My thinking was that if they couldn't respond to an email interested in hiring them then would they ever respond to an editor who wanted to cover us in a story? These were PR firms who are paid to communicate. Imagine that!

This is just one of many examples of companies I can think of that did not respond to emails that I sent to them. I'm sure all of you don't need to think back too far to come up with other examples in either your personal or business life. Why does this happen? Would a business ever not pick up the phone if it rang? Why does the company even bother to put an email address on their website?

While part of this post is clearly a rant brewing in me from last year, I did want to write the post still because I continue to experience a lack of response and know there is an obvious lesson that some companies have failed to grasp. A potential customer that reaches out to you, either by phone, email or other means, is far more qualified than someone that you cold-called.

So you need to follow-up and respond to them as quickly as possible because that person is clearly interested in your company and could buy your product, write about your company, or help you in some other way. By not responding or waiting a long time to respond, you have lost that opportunity and you may have even damaged your brand as they could spread the fact that you are unresponsive.

The simple lesson in all of this is that if someone takes the time to send you an email then you need to respond to that email within a couple of business hours. If not, then don't bother having an email contact on your website as it's doing more harm than good. Respond to those emails now, what are you waiting for?

 

Comments

[Nike SB]

Weblogs may be a quite marketable and very rewarding instrument if employed correctly. Profiting from blogs is just a matter of grabbing the interest of an audience and never performing any actual salesmen promoting.

[Counseling Jacksonville Fl]

Weblogs may be a quite valuable and very fulfilling device if used properly. Benefiting from blogs is just a matter of getting the interest of an viewers and never doing any real sellers advertising.

[king]

Awww, Mira so sweet! Thanks for sharing all that with me. I'm tnukhfal for our big sis chats, too!I think it's probably the case that most of us felt lonely as children perhaps part of the dawning awareness of the world around us. At least, I hear it affirmed all the time that people felt a bit awkward, like they didn't quite fit in anywhere, while growing up. There are many layers to this for me, and I hope to someday unravel all this more fully in written form. For now, I'm just tnukhfal for the journey (even those pains I had) because they make me the person I am today, caring about the things I care about today.xoxo,ChristiannePS: Would love to hear your answer to the question once you've given it some more thought! :-)