I read this article on email and customer service about 6 months ago but while I was looking at some goals for 2008 I thought it was worth revisiting.

So how do you stack up in those figures? If I’m not careful I tend to find myself amongst the 70% who fail to respond within 24 hours. Definately something I’ll be fixing for 2008.

A good tactic is mentioned in Mike’s first point:

Automatically respond to all emails received: People will be more willing to wait for a reply if their initial communication has been acknowledged. Include a commitment to act on the issue and when you will respond fully.

I think people will generally understand if you can’t address the issue immediately – but it’s important to acknowledge the email and set an expectation of when you will be able to do so.

It also ties in to something I wrote back in 2004 about controlling your email (instead of the other way around!) – it’s as relevant now as then.

So, my top tips:

1. Choose when to check your email – don’t let your computer decide for you
2. As you’re going through your messages, fire up your diary (or whatever time management tool you use) and mark a time to actually attend to the task or issue
3. Respond to each email as soon as you read it (even if it’s only a brief response) – and at that point you can let the other person know when you’ll attend to is as well

Of course, if it’s an emergency you may need to deal with it straight away and all the above advice is null and void, but we don’t live in a perfect world, do we?

Spam has skyrocketed over the last month. The Sydney Morning Herald reports an increase of 12% – and other sources quote up to a 70% increase!

Whichever way you look at it – it’s a lot of extra spam around globally at the moment. Spam filters are having to deal with a huge volume of extra mail and consuming a high proportion of server resources in the process.

From th SMH:

Technology market analyst IDC estimated in April that of the nearly 97 billion emails expected to be sent around the world each day … 40 billion would be spam messages.

Nobody likes the extra spam – but if faced with a choice it’s better to let some through rather then potentially delete legitimate email.

According to the article in the SMH a virus is the main trigger for the increase, so once that’s under control hopefully our email volumes can return to normal.

In the meantime:

1. Keep your Anti-virus software up to date.
2. Don’t click links in emails from people you don’t know.
3. If the email is from someone you know, but still looks suspicious – confirm that it’s actually from who it says before opening anything.