The mania for email in and around UK Plc is multiplying, causing an every increasing expectation of the high speed response to email enquiries.
A survey published today reports that one in ten UK businesses now expect a 30 minute turnaround on new business emails and one in three feels that a response should be made within two hours.
Results like this would suggest that these people are clearly on the upward side of the learning curve of email.
Those of us who have suffered under the kosh of email for more than a decade take a much more relaxed approach to email, with some sort-your-life-out gurus suggesting that email is only checked twice, or even once a day.
The guru theory being that constant checking of email not only wastes your time (true), but can lead to madness (also sometimes true).
The stats come from the “Vodafone Critical Response Time Index” which, by pointing out how everyone needs to have near-constant access to email, encourage businesses and individuals to take up mobile email service – bringing in lots of lovely income from data services. Pretty neat.
Let’s be clear, we’re not saying that mobile email isn’t useful — it is, when it’s under your control — but when 17% of the respondents feel anxious when they are ‘offline,’ you know things are getting slightly out of kilter.
image: Bruno Girin