A website says "we reply within 24 hours". A sales email says "I will come back to you today". A support signature says "we respond as quickly as possible". Three promises, written by three people, and nobody has checked whether any of them is true. The customer, however, remembers every one of them.
A response-time promise is cheap to write and expensive to break. This article describes a small routine for a company of ten to fifty people: what to promise, how to know whether you keep it and what to do on the days you do not.
Promise two things, not one
Most promises mix up two different times.
- First reply: how long until a person acknowledges the message and says who is handling it.
- Next update: how long the customer waits between messages while the problem is still open.
Do not promise a resolution time unless the work is fully in your hands. A repair that depends on a supplier, a delivery that depends on a carrier or a bug that depends on an investigation can take as long as it takes. What you can promise is that the customer will not be left in silence: "You will hear from us again by Thursday, even if the answer is that we are still working."
This is also kinder to your own team. A promise to reply is a promise about attention. A promise to solve is a promise about everything else.
Set the number from real data
Before choosing a number, look at the last four weeks of messages in your shared inbox or ticket list. For each one, note when it arrived and when the first human reply went out. A spreadsheet with two columns and a difference is enough.
Then ask three questions:
- What time did we answer half of the messages? This is your usual day.
- What time did we answer nine out of ten? This is the number you can honestly promise.
- Which messages were slowest and why? Weekends, one absent person and one unclear mailbox are the typical answers.
Round the promise up. If nine in ten were answered within five working hours, promise "one working day". Customers forgive a fast answer to a slow promise much more easily than the reverse.
Separate channels if the data shows a difference. A phone call and a web form have different expectations. If you have a contact form with a one working day reply rule, that rule can stay as it is. This article is about the wider promise across all channels.
Write it where customers see it
Put the promise in three places: the contact page, the automatic confirmation message and the email signature of anyone who talks to customers. Use the same words everywhere. A good sentence is plain and has a unit:
We reply to every message within one working day. If your question needs more time, we will tell you who is looking at it and when you will hear from us next.
Define "working day" once, with your opening hours and holidays. Avoid "24/7", "instant" and "ASAP" unless a rota really stands behind them.
Give the promise an owner
A promise without a name is nobody's job. Choose one person who owns the number and one who covers when they are away. The owner does not answer everything. They look at the count each week and raise a flag when it slips. Our guide on company email and shared calendar rules describes how to give shared mailboxes a clear owner.
Measure with a weekly count
You do not need software for this. Once a week, take the messages that arrived in the last seven days and count:
- how many came in,
- how many got a first reply inside the promise,
- the longest wait.
Write the three numbers in a shared note with the date. After a month you see a trend; after a quarter you see whether the promise is realistic. If you keep a customer complaint log, add a column showing whether the complaint was about a slow answer. That tells you how much the promise matters to customers, not only to you.
A reasonable target is that nine of ten messages are inside the promise. Ten of ten usually means the promise is too generous, and the customer is waiting longer than necessary.
What to do when you miss it
You will miss it, because someone is ill, a mailbox is forgotten or a campaign brings a rush of messages. The miss is not the real damage. The silence after it is.
Use a short routine:
- Reply as soon as you notice, even if it is a late acknowledgement. "Sorry for the wait. Marta is looking at this and will answer by noon tomorrow."
- Say the new time and keep it. A second miss costs more than the first.
- Do not explain at length. One honest sentence is enough: "We had more messages than usual this week."
- Note the cause in the weekly count: absence, unclear owner, wrong mailbox, unusual volume.
- Fix the cause if it appears twice, for example by adding a cover person or by moving the form to a different inbox.
For a message that is already late when you find it, answer it before the new ones. The oldest message is the most likely to cause a complaint.
When the promise should change
Check the numbers every quarter. If you keep the promise easily, you can shorten it and use that as a small advantage. If you miss it more than one week in five, lengthen it or add capacity; do not leave the old number on the website out of embarrassment. A longer honest promise is better than a short false one. Rules for different kinds of requests, such as website enquiries or leads handed to sales, can have their own numbers, as long as each is written down.
What to do this week
- Pull the last four weeks of customer messages and note arrival and first reply for each.
- Find the time within which nine in ten were answered and compare it with what you promise now.
- Rewrite the promise as first reply plus next update, with a working-day definition.
- Name the owner and the cover, and start the three-number weekly count.
- Write the late-reply sentence now, so nobody has to invent it under pressure.
Sources
- GOV.UK, Consumer protection and rights: overview of the rights customers have when they buy goods and services, useful background for why written promises matter.