How Often Should You Check Your Email?
February 22, 2008
This is a question we always get from our clients. Many agents do not have set office hours and may not always be in front of a computer. Many agents may be on the road at appointments. It becomes a question that many of us wrestle with.
No one wants to become a slave to their computer. One of the reasons we got into this business was to enjoy our free time. However in this era of Web 2.0 , with all of the blogging and RSS feeds and burgeoning technology, email reliance is rapidly approaching the level of the cell phone.
The answer to the question: As often as you need to. In a recent survey, 65% of those polled said they only check their email once per day. I would tend to think that real estate agents as a group being somewhat behind the technological curve check their email a lot less than that.
In an industry that has been proven to have nearly 80% or more of its potential customers originating from the Internet, you are going to need to be accessible.
If you have a true real estate oriented blog, with full SEO and laser guided targeting, it stands to reason that a more frequent check of your email is going to be necessary. However if most of your busines is based upon referrals or SOI then maybe you have the luxury of checking it much less frequently.
Oh..one last thing…please lose the autoresponder. Or if you are going to use it, use it productively. Maybe send the recipient to an article on your blog. Obvoiusly if one does not get an email back from you they know you are unavailable. Telling the Sender you’ll get back to them is kind of mundane.
How about something like this:
Sorry I missed your email but I will definitely respond as soon as possible. In the interim, please check out this article on my blog. I think you will find it really informative.
Also, in this viral world, instead of a deleted autoresponder, you never know how many times that email may be forwarded and it drives traffic back to your blog. Just a thought.
Anyway, back to the question… how often do you check your email?
Constantly… except when I have an issue (I had one the other day… first in a very long time. But, I have email capability on my phone, and I try to respond to all emails within minutes.
If’ I’m at my desk, the email is open and I read them basically as they come in. If I’m not at my desk, I get email on the crackberry, and read them basically as they come in….