alt Hacker NewsIn business communications, I believe it's common courtesy to respond to emails within 24 hours. If I get blown off, or if somebody takes 4 days to respond to my email, my impression is always that my counterparty views the matter as unimportant. For my part, if I reply late, and if the matter is genuinely important, I think it's proper and fitting to include a brief note of apology.
In email communications with friends, it varies. I'll often let conversations hang for a while until there's something new to discuss.
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It's like everything else, it depends
If I ask a quote, get it, and answer only 2w later, I will probably apologize. If someone sends me a quote unprovoked, they shouldn't have any expectations of getting an answer, and if I answer even late, I won't apologize.
If my boss or people working on my project send me an email to get a status on something and it takes me a week to answer, I'll apologize- even if that's because I was busy on something more important. If a random colleague asks me for something unrelated with my direct responsibilities, similarly I'll get to it if I get to it when I get to it, and I dont think they should have expectations of receiving an answer, so I won't apologize
It's more like two business days in the academia, and only if a simple response is enough. Complex questions often take longer, because coming up with an answer may take an hour or two of uninterrupted time.
And if it's a cold email requesting something beyond a reply, and you don't have an existing business relationship with the sender, there is no expectation that you respond. An endless stream of requests from less reputable entities is an unavoidable fact of academic life. Such requests often go directly to the spam folder, as people have collectively decided that they are spam and trained the spam filters accordingly. Even if you think your request is legitimate, it can be indistinguishable from spam.
Absolutely! The author doesn't mention what type of communication he means, but for business communications (in Belgium, where the author is from), anything over 24 hours (one working day) must have some explanation.
It's always better to explain yourself, otherwise, it looks unprofessional if you reply after a week as though it's normal.
Overall, the recommendations about email look very personal to the author and perhaps shouldn't be taken as general advice.
>If I get blown off, or if somebody takes 4 days to respond to my email, my impression is always that my counterparty views the matter as unimportant
Usually it is unimportant, and the other side is just wasting their time.
Different people and different work environments have different rules.'
I view my email once per week. If you need an immediate answer from me, I expect you to send me a slack/chat/pagerduty warning, even one that says "I sent you an email, I need answer by tomorrow".
> In business communications, I believe it's common courtesy to respond to emails within 24 hours.
Sounds funny because I only read mails when someone tell me about them on MSTeams.
Between IM, supports tickets and jira stories I don't really see the point of emails anymore. If it is something that has an SLA tickets seem to be the way to go, if not Teams. If it is an urgent matter, mentioning my name or calling me will be a quicker way to go. Email seem to be in that weird place where some people still seem to want to insert invisible business matters in an ocean of junk and automatized mails/notifications you generally never subscribe yourself but ends up subscribed by default when given access to resources/applications.
My rule is: 2 business days if I know you, 2-4 business days if I don’t know you but you are offering something of actual value to me, up to infinity for everyone else. I only offer an apology for the first group.
Also Async doesn’t mean delayed forever.
24 hours -> 1 business day
don't expect replies over weekends and holidays
It can be common courtesy as long as the other party is not feeling entitled to one's time and attention.
i would suspect this flies over the OPs head.
> In business communications, I believe it's common courtesy to respond to emails within 24 hours.
Different stroke for different folks, but I'm still very much in the paradigm where email is more like a letter in the mail, not like a text message, IM, or "please return my call" voicemail. [0]
Of course I recognize that email is often used for time-sensitive matters (like scheduling events), but any time I see an email that is likely to require multiple timely backs-and-forths I'll try to move the conversation to a more suitable medium.
[0] Here I'm referring to solicited emails sent by humans or transactional emails triggered directly by a human interaction. In practice our email inboxes also serve as a general "notifications hub" for all sorts of things including recurring events ("remember to pay your bill") and, of course, unsolicited junk.