Have you ever asked yourself if using email could be killing your business relationships?
I’m (sadly) old enough to remember when electronic mail (or email, as the kids now call it) was considered a privilege at work rather than a necessity. Just like back in the day, employers were worried about putting a telephone on every employee’s desk (who knows what they’ll say to clients, right?) so employers were concerned that allowing employees to have their own email addresses would cause more trouble than it was worth.
Of course, email, just like the telephone, is now considered a necessity, and it’s inconceivable that any employer wouldn’t allow their staff to use email.
But do we now rely on email to communicate too much?
Email is not for Conversations
Our reliance on email has reached the stage where email is often being used inappropriately, and it could be killing your business.
Many of us now regularly get *so much* email that we often ask ourselves “When did my job become answering email?”.
When somebody external to our business emails us, our instinct is to email them right back.
The trouble is, email does not convey emotion. Email does not convey intent. A badly worded email can, at best, cause confusion, and at worse, cause offence.
When used well, email is a method of disseminating information in a convenient way across long-distances and different time zones. When used badly, email could kill your business.
Why does your colleague, who sits 10 feet away, send you an email asking what you’d like for lunch? Why don’t they then get out of their seat and, you know, talk to you?
If you are emailing somebody with a question that is likely to generate follow-up questions, pretty soon you’ll be having a conversation. Email is not for conversations. Why spend so much time writing an email, waiting for a response, writing your own response, waiting for another response and so on. Instead, you could just pick up the telephone and get all the answers you need quickly and efficiently?
Use the Telephone so Email Doesn’t Kill Your Business
For most IT Solution Providers or Managed Service Providers (MSPs), encouraging your clients to use email is a good thing. Rather than the telephone being bombarded with support requests, and clients being held in a queue, they can email their query across. That way, you can prioritise and deal with problems accordingly.
The challenge here is, most clients don’t do a good job of explaining what they want over the telephone, and do an even worse job by email. This isn’t their fault – we’re the IT experts, not them. It’s often difficult to write down what is going wrong or what you’d actually like to achieve.
So when a support email comes in, members of your Service Desk sending a reply email is more often than not a recipe for frustration. This is a great example of why using email could be killing your business relationships. It’s far better to pick up the telephone, call the individual and ask them to clarify how you can help. Using the telephone takes less time, is more efficient, and gets to the heart of the matter faster than emails back and forth.
Email for Sales is also Killing Your Business
Likewise, for those of us in Sales, emailing a proposal to a prospect is a no-no. When we do this, we can’t judge their body language or reaction when they read the proposal, and we can’t answer any questions as they crop up. It’s much better to schedule some time with the prospect to deliver the proposal by hand, answer their questions in person and judge their response to your outline.
If it’s not possible to meet in person, then schedule a time to be on the telephone with the prospect while you email the proposal to them. You can’t judge body language over a telephone, but you can answer questions and get some gauge of their reaction. You could also use video conferencing to see as well as hear them.
Email Chains are Killing Your Business!
It’s also worth remembering that every time you send an email, you should expect an email (or multiple emails) in reply. Pretty soon you’ll have a tidal wave of emails coming in faster than you can respond to them.
If you’re frustrated with the amount of email you have to process every day, then remember that email begets 
email. Send less email!
It’s true that while you can use the telephone more and email less, others will be harder to convince. You’ll still continue to get emails, and that’s ok. But by using the telephone to respond to emails, you’ll get fewer emails and get more done!
Don’t believe it can work? You can check out my experiment in using the telephone instead of email and see the results for yourself!
Conclusion
An email is a powerful communication method – when used appropriately. I’m by no means advocating we all eschew email and go back to the days of endless meetings. But we have lost the personal touch now.
Email can be impersonal and cold. With its lack of emotion and intent, a badly worded email can damage relationships. Don’t let email kill your business. A telephone call is often faster than email and has fewer chances of miscommunication.
Consider this when you next receive an email from a client or anyone else. If you use the telephone or meeting in person you’ll probably strengthen a relationship, not risk damaging it through miscommunication.
If you want help on how to manage email overload then get in touch. What are your tips for using email effectively? I’m intrigued to hear them. Leave a comment below!
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Richard Tubb is one of the best-known experts within the global IT Managed Service Provider (MSP) community. He launched and sold his own MSP business before creating a leading MSP media and consultancy practice. Richard helps IT business owner’s take back control by freeing up their time and building a business that can run without them. He’s the author of the book “The IT Business Owner’s Survival Guide” and writer of the award-winning blog www.tubblog.co.uk
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