online retailer email response

[TdC]

Quick question guys and gals. Say you email an online shop, or a shop that has an major online presence as well as a regular shop. How much time would you allow to pass before you would consider that email to be "over it's time limit"?

Myself, I consider any major online retailer worth their salt should respond to a decently worded email within a maximum of two working days. How about you? I am more forgiving of outfits I know to be small, or that I don't know at all, but major etailers I hold to pretty high standards and if they fail them I tend to start looking for a replacement shop. Am I too harsh?

 

[Tom]

If I went into a shop on the high street and asked a question, and was ignored, I wouldn't shop there again.

Online retailers should remember that.

 

[Doh_boy]

I put 3-5 solely because that's when I'd getting really pissed. If a retailer took longer than 2 days I'd not get too angry but I'd seriously consider using them again.

 

[Mazling]

I went emailing all sorts of random online/offline retailers asking for a release date for my new motherboard, lots of decent replies within acceptable timeframe. Good stuff.

 

[Athena]

I become irritated if my e-mails are not responded to within minutes! This is at work tho. Patience is a virtue etc.. whatever

Because I don’t live in the UK I don’t have access to many of the UK high-street stores. Past experience – Tesco Online were pretty good.
Recently I mailed Dell – I didn’t receive a response. This occurred 3 times over the course of a month – bloody outrageous tbh. Dell your customer service sucks ass! Berlin Air and cisco – response in less than an hr.

Oh sorry! To answer the question – a maximum time scale of 3 days

 

[Draylor]

1 working day: and since websites dont take weekends or holidays that means 24 hours. Sure if its a small operation I wont expect a reply over a weekend, but the rest have no excuse.

If they cant handle customer requests within that time they wont be getting my business.

 

[GReaper]

Ideally 2 hours if they want a great reputation, preferably within 24 hours otherwise.

You won't gain any reputation as an online retailer if you ignore your customers for a few days just because it's email. You're more likely to remember a company that replies to you within an hour.

 

[Chilly]

sadly dell have so many large corporate customers they dont give a shit about consumers and hence hire a bunch of indians with shit english skills to "provide the high level of customer service you have come to expect from Dell".

*****

 

[DaGaffer]

Depends on the question, but generally I'd expect a response within one working day, that's a reasonable time line. Instant response usually means an auto-response (waste of time) or they have far too many CS staff (raising costs), or you got incredibly lucky, but at any rate its not a reasonable expectation; but then I do have a lot of experience in this area...

 

[Embattle]

What I want and what I accept I'll get are entirely different.