Responding to Emails - Immediately or Daily?

Today, I read an interesting post at the National Association of Realtors Technology Blog.  Chris McKeever was pointing how how he loves the opportunities that emails, being accessible from practically anywhere, provide for him in his business.

As a REALTOR, you are in the service industry. If you were your own client, which of the above two would you appreciate more? A single, delayed, response with the information, or two emails, one acknowledging that you got their request and the other returned in a timely manner with the relevant information? I know which I would rather have.

I find myself to be very tech-savvy compared to others around my office, and find that I attract clients that are the same way.

In no way am I saying that customer service is not one of my priorities, though I feel that a quick emailed response to a question sent is not always the best thing to do.  I do advocate returning all emails on a daily basis, and returning emails that are very urgent immediately.

What I will not do is send a response back immediately to a general question.  Why?  For two main reasons: Doing so will possibly throw me off of a particular mode I am in at the moment.  This is usually lead generation mode.  Second, doing so trains in the minds of my clients that you will be there to answer that email 100% of the time.  If I am always firing off emails to clients on a moments notice, they will begin to expect this same behavior in the future and this is not always the case.

As real estate agents, we must learn to allocate our time among various clients.  There may be days that have been in meetings all day, showing homes half the day, and have simply not had a chance to sit and check our emails as our normal routine intended.

When days like this arise, and you are the type to send emailed responses very quickly on a routine basis, the clients that have come to expect this of you begin to wonder, "What's going on?  He's not emailing me right back for some reason today..."

This has happened to me before, and is the reason I choose to be selective in my response times to various emails.  I'm curious to think what you, as a real estate agent, have learned in the past in scenarios such as this one.  

When do you respond to emails - Immediately, or Daily? 

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Steven Castaneda, Realtor, is a real estate consultant with Keller Williams Realty specializing in Houston Texas Real Estate. He has been consulting on Houston Real Estate transactions for over 2.5 years, and focuses on coaching his clients to make the most informed and intelligent decision possible with their real estate investments. His site features a great tool if you are looking to find homes using the Houston MLS.

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