What comes next once you have your online business up running? Let's imagine sales are good, and your marketing campaign is bringing in new customers and your business is growing. Chances are your receiving emails about your service or product. So what happens now? To begin with, its a good thing to identify that a person who emails you has an interest in your business. Allowing a gap of time to response on your own or ignore this person is detrimental to your business. This might not be apparent right away but eventually the snowball effect of word of mouth would get around that you do not care for your customers or potential customers enough to provide good customer service. What happens next is that this will then lead people to go somewhere else for their purchases. To entirely avoid this here are some tips for effectively dealing with email. Its important for you, to answer email within 24 hours minimum. Avoid having your response delayed for over 48 hours. To accomplish this you will want to set aside time each day just to respond to emails. Some say three times a day, morning, mid afternoon, and evening is because it may take up a good span of time for a good response. Be sure to respond in a courteous and professional manner. There will be times that you just don't feel like answering question that has an answer plainly on your website or sales letter, or some question you feel is irrelevant or foolish. You will need to hold back on the urge to send a response in reaction to the way you feel and if you do not feel you can politely and professionally answer, take a break. Come back after taking some time to cool down. To the customer who asked this could be an important part of their decision on whether they will do business with you or not. Do not push away customers or potential customers with a hasty emotional response. If you dislike answering email or it becomes overwhelming for you to keep up with, hire someone to do this task for you. You will want to choose this person carefully. Get someone who has the ability to respond in a friendly manner. Someone who knows your business. This person will need to have the time to commit to this task and will also need the English skill necessary to get a prompt and understandable reply back to the customer. Some questions will be repetitive. It's a good idea to set up a standard response and file it away so that you can cut and paste it into your email and then tailor the rest of this to that particular customer. It is at times inevitable that life gets in the way of a regular routine. We may be set back in our schedules. Making use of an auto responder, or by posting answers to common questions it on your website, or by sending out a newsletter quick if something comes up will help you to keep in touch even through challenging times. All people are aware of the fact that things can happen and with an open mind we understand. Just make sure to keep everyone informed on when they can expect response. By corresponding on a regular basis to your customers comments, questions or concerns, your developing a relationship with them that will make them a happy and loyal group who will help your sales. The bottom line is that if you ignore your customers,they will simply go somewhere else which really defeats the purpose behind your growing business.