How to Enhance E-Mail Response - Part 1 15 Reasons Why E-mails Fail to Elicit Response

Why people do not respond to my e-mail ? Heard that anguished question before ? Well, I hear that so often and try to explain intricacies of e-mail communication so many times - that led me to write this article. Hopefully, I shall be able to refer the questioner to this article next time.

There may be several reasons why your e-mails go un-answered - and many of the reasons may be traced back to you ! It is true that the recipient may be unwilling or deliberately deleting your mails without responding, but at the same time - there is a fair chance that you are committing some grave errors in your e-mail communication.

It is unfair to jump to a conclusion on recipient's attitude - the fault may as well lie with you !

Sounds bizarre ? Well - let us logically examine all possible angles why an e-mail communication fails. We shall analyze various reasons, examine common mistakes and goof-ups, develop a check-list and finally arrive at specific measures that can significantly enhance response rate.

Reasons for Failure of e-mail communication

You have sent an e-mail to John last week - but have not received any response so far. Let us consider various reasons why John, apparently, is not responding to your e-mail:


Scenario - A : John receives your e-mail..

  • Case 1 : John decides not to respond


  • Case 2 : John is undecided or waiting for something he will respond later


  • Case 3 : John feels your e-mail does not deserve a response


  • Case 4 : John is on vacation


  • Case 5 : John deletes your mail without reading, thinking it to be another spam or virus


  • Case 6 : John receives your garbled e-mail and decides its too much taxing, deciphering your mail (perhaps you sent html formatted mail that John's mail client read as plain text)


Scenario - B : John Does Not Receive Your Mail...

  • Case 7 : John's ISP, personal Firewall or mail filter deletes your mail before it reaches John's mailbox


  • Case 8 : You have wrongly typed john's e-mail address


  • Case 9 : John no longer uses this e-mail address


  • Case 10 : Your ISP fails to deliver mail


Scenario - C : John responds but you do not receive....

  • Case 11 : John uses wrong e-mail address


  • Case 12 : You have placed wrong e-mail address in 'From:' or 'Reply To:' column of your e-mail


  • Case 13 : You use multiple e-mail boxes (all free of course !) to send mails, however check only one or two for incoming mail.


  • Case 14 : Your ISP Or mail filter blocks John's e-mail


  • Case 15 : John's ISP fails to deliver mail


Confusing ? All along you thought John is the culprit, dodging your e-mails. Now, you will have to take into account other agents between you and John.

Let's give John a break and examine what factors within your control may be contributing to this communication failure. We shall examine common mistakes and goof-ups that lead to no-response situation.

Happy and Safe Surfing

Dr. Amit K Chatterjee

Related Links:

 

Source: FAIDA - Newsletter on Business Opportunties from India and Abroad Vol: 5, Issue 4 ; August 12' 2004

Author : Dr. Amit K. Chatterjee
(Amit worked in blue-chip Indian and MNCs for 15 years in various capacities like Research and Information Analysis, Market Development, MIS, R&D Information Systems etc. before starting his e-commerce venture in 1997. The views expressed in this columns are of his own. He may be reached at amit@infobanc.com )


Copyright
� All Rights Reserved. Limited permission is granted to publish this article in a web-site or printed in a journal/ newspaper/ magazine provided the publisher takes prior permission from author, do not make any change in the article (i.e. keep it exactly same as displayed above) and cite the Source of this article as The Great Indian Bazaar with a link to this page.