In today’s world, instant response has become a way of life. When we communicate with someone via technology, the ability for someone to respond right away has led to this being more the norm than waiting for days (or longer). The fact that people have come to expect this is the reason people have autoresponders: to let others know they are away from their computers and won’t be answering their email until a later date.

If you’re running a business, even as a solopreneur, people expect you to be available. And if you’re not checking your email or you’re not responding in a timely manner, you could be missing out on opportunities and losing business.

I have witnessed the following happening frequently:

A person gets an email offer for a freelance job and doesn’t check their email for a few days. Someone else is asked – opportunity lost.

A person is emailed about taking on a new client and doesn’t respond for days. The potential client chooses another person – opportunity lost.

A person asks a question about a product or service and doesn’t get a response. The person decides not to purchase the product or pursue the service because the business owner/company shows a lack of care for the consumer – opportunity lost.

It’s understandable that the demand on people’s time may be higher than what they can keep up with, but in cases like that, there are solutions that can keep these unfortunate business losses at bay:

1. Have dedicated emails for incoming business and for customer service/fulfillment. Having one email for your personal use, business, online purchases, and newsletters and advertisements from other businesses means your inbox could overflow constantly, making it overwhelming, and it’s also possible that you could miss an important email. Dedicated business emails mean you should only be looking at things that are important when you check it.

2. Check your business email every day (unless it is the weekend / other scheduled days off you have - boundaries!). You shouldn’t have to take time weeding through emails if you have dedicated business emails, because every email there should be important. If you find you are receiving emails to that address that are not important or related to your work, be sure to give the sender a different address to use for the future (or if it’s spam, report it). If the opposite is happening and you’re receiving business-related emails to a personal address, be sure you tell the sender that you will answer faster if they use your business address.

3. Don’t wait more than 24 (business) hours to respond. If you can’t respond when you read the email, flag it to attend to as soon as possible. A delay in response gives the impression that you aren’t interested or you don’t care. If it takes more than 24 hours to respond, preface your email by thanking the receiver for their patience. This acknowledges that you know the person has been waiting and shows care for their time. (Remember, people are used to instant gratification these days…)

4. Don’t check business email on your phone when you’re doing non-business things. Unless you can flag the email on your phone and pick it up on your computer later, the chances of you remembering to respond are low. Or you might respond in your mind when you read it, therefore thinking you responded (I’ve been guilty of this one, which is why I no longer check business email on my phone).

5. Set dedicated times to check your email each day. You can turn off notifications or close programs and not be interrupted, because you can rest assured that you will attend to any business-related emails at a certain time.

Losing work because you’re not responding to inquiries in a timely manner is completely avoidable! With a little organizational effort, checking and responding to email can become an easier task. Who knows, you may even start to like checking email, especially if it’s all relevant to your business growth!

If you have grown to the point that you can’t keep up, it’s time to hire someone to help you manage this. Even if you are too busy to take the work, people should always receive a response. You never know when you might welcome that person being a customer or client in the future, or to whom they might refer you if they feel they have been honored and respected.