The Problem with Email
We have become a society that wants to resolve everything with an email. I was working with one of our sales people the other day and he was trying to resolve a problem. He said the person he needed to get in touch with was not responding to his emails. "Call him," I said.
I believe that the proper order in working with customers and potential customers is:
1. Face to face. Nothing beats face to face. A lawyer once told me that he didn't like conference calls because you don't get "the smell of the room". How true that is. You can't understand a customer's needs unless you spend time at his facility and understand who you're dealing with. If at all possible, meet your customers face to face.
2. Phone is the second best. Why? Because you get the feel of your customer's voice. Is he upset? Anxious? Mad? I can't tell you the number of times that a customer comes across as upset and angry in emails, but calm when you talk to him. Can't meet face to face? Call!
3. Email is the absolute court of last resort. All of us are guilty of saying things in email that we would never say face to face or on the phone. If a customer needs a quote at 11pm, yes, use email. Otherwise, call or, better, visit.
Companies like Amazon and Google think face to face selling is dead. I don't see it. There is nothing like looking a person in the eye to see what he's thinking.
There's another huge problem with emails: even when people "read" them, they tend to skim them rather than read in depth. I can't tell you how many emails I've sent, only to have people later either call, or email, to ask for information that was very clearly delineated in the original email, but wasn't in the first five or ten lines. But if I'm talking with them, I can always see and hear if they were awake and receiving the info they needed. And in the interaction of talking with them, many other useful things often become obvious that would have never come to light in the slow pace of email exchanges.
ReplyDeleteDave
This is a good subject for another blog. I usually make my emails bullet points or numbered items rather than paragraphs. Then the response can be numbered to correspond.
DeleteI am in agreement 100% - Most people can not write emails that make the reader feel exactly what is meant. Long winded emails are a problem when a person gets a 100 emails a day. The amount of emails today are a challenge for most people to comprehend every important fact.
ReplyDelete