Those of you who work in practice, what do you consider a reasonable length of time t

wally1990

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What do you consider a reasonable amount of time to respond to a client email?

Stratvs

If it’s something I can answer off the top of my head or with minimum checking then I’d usually answer at the time I’ve seen it. I don’t have audio notifications turned on for emails so that could be anything from minutes to an hour or so. If it’s something that requires a bit of research I’ll respond and say I’m occupied at something else right now but I’ll be back to them as soon as I can. That generally means a few days.

I’ve found one can be too fast to reply to some people. Once I got a phone call just after putting the phone down from an approx half hour call. The client said they rang as I hadn’t answered their email. I apologised and said oh what day was that I don’t remember seeing it. They said it was sent 20 minutes earlier and wondered why I wasn’t back to them.

wally1990

Stratvs wrote: »

If it’s something I can answer off the top of my head or with minimum checking then I’d usually answer at the time I’ve seen it. I don’t have audio notifications turned on for emails so that could be anything from minutes to an hour or so. If it’s something that requires a bit of research I’ll respond and say I’m occupied at something else right now but I’ll be back to them as soon as I can. That generally means a few days.

I’ve found one can be too fast to reply to some people. Once I got a phone call just after putting the phone down from an approx half hour call. The client said they rang as I hadn’t answered their email. I apologised and said oh what day was that I don’t remember seeing it. They said it was sent 20 minutes earlier and wondered why I wasn’t back to them.

Ah jesus that's ridiculous and that's a worrying trend I see too,

People think email is like instant messaging nowadays and we can respond straight away

I personally think a working day is reasonable to respond so 8 business hours, even if it's a holding email to say let me look into X and come back to you.

Stratvs

wally1990 wrote: »

People think email is like instant messaging nowadays and we can respond straight away

Agreed. I hate the email ping pong that ends up like an IM thread.

duffysfarm

try emailing your solicitor and see how long that takes.......