Maybe it’s just me, but I love playing the game, “How fast I can respond to a client email?”.
It’s like a seductive game of Whack a Mole. A client email appears in my inbox while I’m composing an email, and BAMN, I respond to it immediately.
Everytime I quickly whack an email, I feel like a small superstar. And I award myself extra points if I respond after 6pm.
Now, some people may say this is not a healthy practice. A better approach is to respond to emails twice a day. Once around 10am, and again around 3pm. Any emails that appear after 3pm will be responded to at 10am the following day.
The result is you don’t need to constantly break your focus to address emails.
Quickly responding also sets up a false expectation. Your clients believe they can access you at any time of day. This isn’t healthy for you. You need your down time.
So where’s the balance?
You could quickly answer with something like, “Thanks for your email, I’ll read it in depth shortly and get back to you.” This provides your client with an acknowledgment and you don’t need to allocate too much time or focus just yet.
The takeaway
While clients like to feel you’re working on their issue, you don’t need to sacrifice your focus by fully responding immediately. Setting up an email schedule is probably a better approach.