How long is too long to answer an email?
What is the standard turnaround time to send a business email response? Short Answer: As fast as you can! Long Answer: I recommend at least within 24 hours (during business hours, of course) if at all possible. If you cannot respond quickly, send a note saying you will respond when you can do so in detail.
Responding to an email within 24 hours is good etiquette. Responding sooner is better because customers will be assured their concerns are being heard and their needs attended to.
The 24-hour rule is a guideline that suggests that you should wait at least 24 hours before sending a follow-up email after an initial email has gone unanswered.
Smith School of Business, adding, it's never too late to reply. “It's OK to recognize that it slipped by you and apologize for not responding sooner. Replying now depends on the importance of the request,” she says. “I do try to circle back to people just to close the loop, even if it's too late to act.
A General Rule of Thumb
A text should be answered within a couple of hours when there is not a time restraint. Keep in mind that if someone is working or exercising or basically out in the field, it may take longer for them to respond.
Responding to emails:
It's courteous to respond by the end of the day, if possible, but not longer than 24 hours. You don't want to leave people hanging. Avoid using 'reply all' – if it doesn't pertain to all.
When an e-mail message pushes your buttons, do not answer it for at least 24 hours. You will likely cool down. You will likely have a better response. Indeed, when you re-read the message a day or so later, you may even realize that it is not as upsetting as it first seemed.
The marketing rule of 7's states that a potential customer must see a message at least 7 times before they'll be provoked to take an action.
The term delayed is used to differentiate a secondary cellular response, which appears 48-72 hours after antigen exposure, from an immediate hypersensitivity response, which generally appears within 12 minutes of an antigen challenge.
It's usually fine. Some people do it, some don't, and it's generally no big deal -- especially these days, with so many people working from different time zones.
Is it rude to not reply to an email?
Ignoring email is an act of incivility. “I'm too busy to answer your email” really means “Your email is not a priority for me right now.” That's a popular justification for neglecting your inbox: It's full of other people's priorities.
"After the 48-hour mark, if you really haven't said anything at all and someone asks you a question that needs an answer, then that's where you're starting to get into ... rudeness or inconsideration," she says. But even etiquette experts get bogged down.
It depends on the situation and the people involved. If you're close friends or in a relationship, then 12 hours is probably not too long, as long as you're not doing it all the time. However, if you're getting to know someone or you're not sure how they feel about you, then 12 hours might be too long.
Standards: What Is a Good Response Time
Any response time over 1 second is problematic and needs to be fixed.
Standards: What Is a Good Response Time
According to Google, the average response time should be under 200 milliseconds as it gives the feeling of an instant response. A web response time ranging between 200 milliseconds and 1 second is considered acceptable as users still likely won't notice the delay.
2-3 Hours:
This is like how long it takes people to respond to a missed call from their parents, or finally start doing the homework they've been putting off for some time. That would mean you're pretty important; the person just wants to have ample time to maintain the entire conversation once they finally do respond.
What is the average email response time? 50% of people respond to work emails within approximately 2 hours. If we extend that to personal emails, the most common response time drops to just 2 minutes. On top of that, 90% of all emails that get a reply, get it within 2 days.
Maximum Response Time means the maximum permissible time within which remedial action must be completed prior to a defect exceeding the permissible tolerance.
If your server response time is under 100ms, it's excellent. Between 100ms and 200 ms is considered good. Between 200ms and 1 second is considered acceptable, but should be improved. Above 1 second is too slow.
Email response time is important because it fosters a sense of trust between the sender and the recipient. This is crucial in business because delays on answering emails can be interpreted as flakiness or untrustworthiness, and it can cost you clients in the long run.
Is 48 hours too long to respond to an email?
Generally, you should aim to respond to all emails within a 24-hour timeframe (not to exceed 48 hours).
They're busy: The person might be occupied with other responsibilities and simply haven't had time to reply. They're not interested: If the person has taken a long time to reply, it might indicate that they're not interested in continuing the conversation or the relationship.
In the U.S. the character count per text message is 160 characters. Beyond this, most modern mobile cell phones and networks support concatenation, which is a process of combining messages longer than 160 characters into one fluent long message.
When it comes to personal emails, people appreciate a quick response time during normal working hours, but if you get back to them within 48 hours they're usually pretty cool about that. For business emails, people usually expect a response within a few hours, but a response within 24 hours is acceptable.
Responding promptly will benefit both you and the sender. An email reply also lets the sender know that you received his or her email message. Even if no questions were asked or no information is needed by the sender, a friendly acknowledgement is in order.
It's usually fine. Some people do it, some don't, and it's generally no big deal -- especially these days, with so many people working from different time zones.
Don't!
Exclamation points and other indications of excitement such as emoticons, abbreviations like LOL, and all CAPITALS do not translate well in business communications. Leave them off unless you know the recipient extremely well. It's also not professional to use a string of exclamation points!!!!!
Address your recipient accordingly.
Making name and title mistakes are easy to do, but may offend your recipient and make them disinterested in what you have to say.
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