A day in the life of the email economy

The team at timetoreply is ready to help you maximize your email performance to improve sales and customer satisfaction.

With so many other ways to reach your customers, why should you be relying on email marketing? Is it even worth it? In short, yes. Email remains one of the most powerful and effective forms of business communication. We highlight the surprising stats that every sales team, customer service team, key account management team and business, needs to know.

Title: The Renaissance Of Email: How Responsiveness Builds Trust

[Call Out: News Outlets have been proclaiming the death of email for over a decade ]

• “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?

• By 2022, 126.7 trillion emails will be sent every year
  • 90% of Americans used email in 2017 — Including members of every age group
    • 15-24: 91%
    • 25-44: 93%
    • 45-64: 90%
    • 65+: 86%
  • 58% of people check their email first thing in the morning — before social media, news sites, or google

• Is Gen Z Killing Email?

• • Gen Z spends more time online than any other generation
    • 45% are online “almost constantly”
    • 44% are online multiple times a day

• • How often does Gen Z check email?
    • 58% several times a day
    • 23% once a day
    • 12% several times a week
    • 5% once a week
    • 1% never check email

• • What does GenZ use email for?
    • Personal: 65%
    • Work: 14%
    • School: 19%

• • But that doesn’t mean email hasn’t changed over the years
    • Today, just 3 companies handle 82% of all email access
      • Apple (iPhone, iPad, Mail): 44%
      • Google (Gmail): 26%
      • Microsoft (Outlook & Outlook.com): 11%
      • Yahoo: 7%
      • Other: 5%

[Call Out: Out of all the emails received, 35% require a response — 23% require an immediate response] Why Is Email Responsiveness Important?

• When do clients expect a response?
  • Nearly half expect a response in just a few hours
    • 15 minutes: 11%
    • 1 hour: 19%
    • 4 hours: 14%
  • YET, the average response time for sales leads is 42 hours

[Call Out: It’s not just the younger generations — 1 in 3 GenX and Boomers expect a response in less than 1 hour]

• What If You Don’t Respond Quickly?

• • Response time is a nonverbal cue to your clients
    • When you fail to meet someone’s expected response time
      • They may feel frustrated or annoyed
      • They pay more attention to nonverbal cues
    • Longer response time tends to decrease interest

• • Response Time Impacts Sales

• • • Companies that respond to inquiries within 1 hour are more likely to qualify the lead
      • 7X more successful than those who take 2 hours
      • 60X more successful than those who take 24+ hours

• • 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 a business — and eventually spend 67% more
        • BUT, 6 in 10 will walk away after just a few bad experiences

[Call Out: Keeping up with email can be a difficult task — But tech can make it easier to stay on top of replies]Improving Your Response Time

• • Organize Their Inbox: Find a system to keep the chaos to a minimum, so you can always find what you’re looking for
  • Set A Goal: Each employee to should work toward a response time goal — and always strive for improvement
  • Apologize If They Fall Behind: A simple “I apologize for the delay” buys goodwill — don’t bother with excuses

• Set Clear Expectations For Email Responsiveness

• • Train Your Clients: When you respond consistently over time, recipients will learn when to expect a reply and feel less frustrated by delays
  • Schedule Checks: Set specific times of day to dig into the inbox — For shared inboxes, stagger employees to check-in throughout the day
  • Create An Email Policy: What is your expected response time? How are vacations covered? How many emails (max) can sit in a shared inbox?

• Use Tech For Fast & Easy Responses

• • Auto Replies: Give clients the satisfaction of knowing their email has been received, and a timeframe of when to expect a full response to their inquiry
  • Quick Replies: Create scripts to answer FAQs and general inquiries, rather than rewriting the same information repeatedly — Just copy and paste
  • Text Expander: Save even more time by creating text macros that are triggered by typing a few keywords — No need to find, copy, and paste your script

[Call Out: Keep a human touch — A touch of humor or personalization will humanize your interactions, even when using a prewritten script]

• Measure Your Progress

• • Responsiveness is essential, how do you know you’re exceeding client’s expectations?

CTA: Win more business and earn your clients’ trust with exceptional email responsiveness — Try TimeToReply

Sources:

https://www.entrepreneur.com/article/244751
https://blog.happyfox.com/dramatically-improve-response-time/
https://www.forbes.com/sites/cherylsnappconner/2013/08/16/why-every-organization-needs-a-standard-response-time-policy/#4e6e13d82e02
https://hbr.org/2011/03/the-short-life-of-online-sales-leads
https://www.fastcompany.com/60037/email-is-dead
https://gsb.haifa.ac.il/~sheizaf/KalmanRafaeliChronemics2011.pdf
https://www.entrepreneur.com/article/244751
https://www.toistersolutions.com/blog/2018/4/15/how-fast-should-a-business-respond-to-an-email
https://optinmonster.com/is-email-marketing-dead-heres-what-the-statistics-show/
https://www.criteo.com/insights/gen-z-social-media/
https://www.campaignmonitor.com/resources/guides/guide-to-gen-z-marketing-2019/
https://www.statista.com/statistics/456500/daily-number-of-e-mails-worldwide/
https://www.forbes.com/sites/rebeccafannin/2019/08/18/why-email-and-cash-are-dead-in-china/#1e34fbac3b0b
https://www.telegraph.co.uk/finance/newsbysector/mediatechnologyandtelecoms/11629237/Evernote-takes-on-Microsoft-and-Google.html
https://www.wsj.com/articles/SB10001424052970203803904574431151489408372