It surprises me how often companies overlook this basic marketing component: responding quickly to customer inquiries. You will make your company stand out among your competitors if you respond to customer emails the same day or the next business day. In fact, you will stand out if you answer your email at all!

I did a website redesign for a client a while back and I was checking the status of their “information” email box – they had an email from a potential client that was 15 months old that they had never even opened. I had another client who called me for a consultation – he said that he had phoned over 30 web designers and I was one of 3 who returned his call. With a simple phone call, I immediately put myself in the top 10% of web designers! However, keeping on top of your email takes time – here are 6 tips for keeping pace with email and phone messages.

1. Know your limits: Most people have a preference for email or phone – figure out which one you prefer and publicize that method more strongly. For my client with the unread message, I chose to post only phone contact information, because no email is better than ignored email. For myself, I play down my phone contact information because I respond more quickly to email messages.
2. Reduce Spam: It will be easier to respond to valuable email messages if you reduce the number of messages you have to work with. See what your web-hosting provider offers – for my BlueHost clients, I recommend SPAM Assassin (set to a SPAM score of “3″) in combination with Account Level Filtering.
3. Call people at the end of their workday: If you phone people near the end of their workday, you will tend to get their voicemail, in which case you can leave them a quick, informative message. Alternately, if they do answer their phone, they will be motivated to keep the conversation short so they can get home.
4. Keep email replies short: This will take you less time to type, and your customers will appreciate it, because it will take them less time to read. Furthermore, people will tend to reply in kind with a short and sweet message.
5. Use copy and paste: If you have already replied to a similar question before, don’t recreate the wheel. Just copy the text from your previous response and alter the text as needed for this particular situation.
6. Answer frequent queries on your website: Prevent unnecessary calls and emails by posting the answer to questions on your website. This is actually better customer service, because it saves your customer a call or email to you. When they do contact you, the call will be better qualified, because they will have answered their basic questions by reading your website.

Put these tips in use today, and put your business in the top 10% of your field!