And I agree with you 100% that customer service is THE KEY ingredient these days. In my business it is one of the things that we put most effort into (fast replies to customers) and it have given us so much return business!!

Mikael Rieck’s last blog post..Mit FireFox 3 Diplom

It's been a while since I've shared the top ten work-at-home posts, so I thought I'd finish the month off with some of the best recent posts….

RhodesTer’s last blog post..Today, I am going to plug THE ONION

For example, losing clients because you don’t respond immediately – I’m with Dave, people who require immediate responses are not good clients for me. I try to respond to everyone that same day, but certainly every email doesn’t get a response right away. Believe it or not this tactic can improve project management as I’ll often get many emails in a day from a client about one topic (often making revisions or changes). Reading all the emails at the end of the day (or even at the half day point) I can respond to the big picture instead of wasting time processing decisions that are then changed an hour later.

For me the theory that it takes xx minutes (forget the number) for the brain to refocus after being interrupted is definitely true. An hour of work where I have ZERO interruptions produces a vastly different result than an hour of work where I’m also checking email, checking twitter, etc. I definitely cannot have a productive day if I’m constantly on email, but different people’s brains work differently. I understand that for you it’s a millisecond of reading the email snippet, but for me reading that alert has taken me out of “the zone”.

I still don’t really understand it. I get my fair share of spam and unwanted email lists, but I usually unsubscribe or mark them as spam pretty quickly. About all that I have in my email is legitimate business correspondence, which I usually read and respond to promptly, and the comment feeds, which are not at all distracting and detract from the productivity of my day not a whit. NOT A WHIT, I say.

What other kinds of email are you guys getting? And why are you getting them? Is everyone else getting Emails of Cool that I don’t know about?

Tei – Rogue Ink’s last blog post..Save your world. Write.

The reality for me is I try my best but I use voice mail. I get distracted by incoming email. I’m doing well but I worry about the people who I miss and have to wait overly long for a response from me. What if I were that person on the other end of the exchange?

I like the Gmail plugin tip — need to try that one.

I’ve been thinking a VA might help with this if my email volume increases, as I use email for receiving bread orders and like to respond personally (ie. not a form letter from an autoresponder.) Right now my 11 year old daughter is filling that role but is getting unreliable as the weather warms up.

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steph’s last blog post..deep thought

As far as email itself goes, I have found that I just get irate when first I get an auto-response, then a template copied response dealing with nothing yet directing me somewhere else. But as a society we are the creators. If we accept practices as being OK, then they will become the norm. I don’t accept it.

Ever noticed how the people who consider themselves too important to even acknowledge receipt of an email are the same ones who have a little popup window requesting confirmation of receipt when they finally do send something?

The whole email issue is one not of “How should I handle my email?” but of the attitude to that email. By allowing others to see your email address you are announcing that you are open to it being used for contact purposes. You are setting an expectation with that, that the email will be used about the same as a voicemail, with a fairly prompt response being in order.To fail to respond is like turning your back while someone while they are speaking to you. Gross bad manners.
As for having my email notification on all the time controlling my life, forget it. But I am not in the business of customer service, just a private individual. When I do check it, if one in the inbox needs a complex reply, I just click on reply, and say I got it, will respond asap.