Many would agree that the world we live in is becoming increasingly smaller and faster with modern day technology available to most people at their finger tips. We know the progress of the internet, social media and mobiles and mostly during our busy lifestyles, we are carrying around these modern day marketing / communication methods in our pockets. We are generally all mobile in our comms and able to react to messages / emails instantly if required.
This has led to most consumers expectations on brands to be increased, most certainly towards their availability and reaction times to questions and complaints. Many of the larger organisations are spending millions in trying to understand their customers likes and dislikes and the best ways in order to capture their attention and turn that interest into purchases.
When it comes to emails we have recent figures that show 52% of business emails are now sent via mobile and tablet devices, again reinforcing the way in which most people are accessing the internet and their relevant chosen communications channels. Using a mobile or a tablet, compared to home or office computer, does though limit your capacity to reply professionally with many small businesses replying to important email correspondence whilst on the train or in between meetings with the commonly seen “Sent from my iPhone” or “Sent from me Xperia Sony Mobile” or similar.
This is in fact something very easy to rectify by accessing your phone settings and updating the text for the email footer to something more professional or indeed to be left blank.
When it comes to new business enquiries you are very much judged by first impressions, ie time it takes you to reply and the style of reply you offer. It is important to make sure that all your mobile devices have the same professional signature (we are sure many people carry two mobile phones plus one tablet with them as standard)!
You can obviously look to show those who email you that you are dedicated to replying soonest so you could change your email signature to express your current situation, ie “Sent from my mobile device – We never delay in replying to our emails” or “Please excuse any typos as sent from a mobile device”. You can have fun ones too such as “Predictive text can cause embarrassment, please excuse any on this reply from my mobile device” or “Replying to you whilst on the run in London”.
Check your mobile internet accessing device settings to update your email signature.