This Is Exactly How Long People Expect You to Take to Respond to an Email -- and Why It Matters
Posted Oct 27, 2023
How long should it take to respond to an email?
I recently asked that question to thousands of connections on LinkedIn. I provided the following four options:
A. Four hours or less
B. One business day or less
C. One business week or less
D. None of these
And the results were fascinating.
Over 600 persons from various positions, companies, and industries responded. Dozens commented, sharing thoughts and insight into both how and why they answered the way they did.
Most interesting, though, was this: There was a single, clear-cut winner to this question.
By analyzing the responses and the reasons behind them, we'll learn an important lesson in emotionally intelligent communication -- and see how answering this question can help you run a better business. (If you find value in this lesson, you might be interested in my free course, which teaches you how to build emotional intelligence in yourself and your team.)
How long to respond to an email? One business day or less
OK, let's cut to the chase. Here are the replies to the survey:
How long should it take to respond to an email?
Four hours or less: 21 percent
One business day or less: 60 percent
One business week or less: 9 percent
None of these: 10 percent
As you can see, a vast majority of participants, over 81 percent, believed an email should be answered within one business day. (This includes the 60 percent who chose "one business day or less" and 21 percent who chose "four hours or less.")
Of course, there's a lot of nuance behind the answer to this question. Someone who gets a hundred or more emails a day will have a different perspective than the person who only gets 10 to 20. And industry, company culture, and job description will certainly influence how you answer as well.
"First question should be, does the email require a response at all?" said one participant. "And do I want to respond? If not, the answer is never. Second question is, is there an implicit deadline? Then try to meet it."
"It depends on who's sending the email," another participant commented. "If it's your boss or someone you're working with on a high-stakes project, you should be answering within the day. For others, it can vary between two business days or within the business week."
The challenge, of course, is that what's "high-stakes" to the person writing the email may not be important to the recipient. But learning to view the email from the perspective of the writer can help in relationship building and maintaining. On the other hand, doing so without balance and boundaries can quickly lead to burnout.
All this considered, it's worth noting that so many people believe the norm when responding to emails is a business day or less. Acknowledging this can teach us an important lesson in emotional intelligence, which includes the ability to work well as a team.
How to make email work for you
It's important that you and your team are on the same page when it comes to answering the question of email response times, for two major reasons.
First, the best teams set expectations for communication.
For example, I'd ask this question when consulting with companies in the past. Often, people were surprised when members of their own team would answer differently from them. Some said they kept notifications on and tried to answer every email as soon as possible. Others turned notifications off and would check once or twice a day, batching their replies. And still others didn't commit to checking their email every day, and if they did, didn't feel pressure to reply, taking up to a week or longer to do so.
But for teammates to collaborate effectively, they must be on the same page when it comes to communication. For example, if a team member has a question and communicates it via email or direct message, they need to know when to expect an answer to that question. Otherwise, the work stagnates and team members feel disconnected.
Secondly, it's important that you and your people have a standard response time because of what those outside your company are expecting.
If your people believe it's acceptable to respond to external emails within a week, but your partners are expecting an answer in a day or two, that won't just damage your bottom line, it'll slowly destroy your relationships -- and even your reputation.
So, how do you make sure that everyone is on the same page? You have to talk about it.
"Norms set clear expectations for how your team works together," wrote a group of Google researchers who spent two years studying remote teams. "But they're often assumed rather than explicitly stated, leaving opportunities for confusion."
Rather than making assumptions, Google recommends teams set clear expectations regarding response times to emails and instant messages, including when messages are sent during "off-hours" or across time zones.
Additionally, when you discuss email response times with your team, remember that if you're communicating externally, the vast majority are hoping for a response within a business day.
But whatever you decide as a team, the important thing is to make a decision and clearly communicate it. Because emotionally intelligent teams know what to expect and what's expected of them -- which leads to more effective collaboration, stronger teams, and fewer missed opportunities.