I have 1 client who sent me a follow-up e-mail on a saturday to ask a question which I needed some time to do research for first. I could reply right now but to me it makes it look like we are working from home if I reply on a saturday/sunday.

 

Just curious to see how you guys do this. Most people on here I assume are freelancers so it could be less of a big deal, but looking at it from an agency point of view. Is replying during the weekends a good idea or best to avoid? This particular client is pretty big and there are more people involved. My gut says reply straight away and please the customer with faster service, my mind says no wait till monday 8 am you are a professional. Hmm.

I'd send a reply to acknowledge the request with the caveat that you will not be investigation a solution until Monday.

 

My wife prefers to drive which means I get to be a passenger. This means I can respond to a whole bunch of emails while we are on the road. The clients feel like they are getting a good service even at the weekend even thought I have no intention of doing anything until tomorrow.

If you're professional then it's 24/7/52. Business always comes first, if you want time to yourself become an employee.

If you're professional then it's 24/7/52. Business always comes first, if you want time to yourself become an employee.

 

That pretty much sums it all, however sometimes you need to know where to stop. A weekend off here and there would only hep you clear your head and regroup.

I agree with Paul on this one.

As a freelancer I am replying to all emails asap. I know that people appreciate good and fast contact.

Any reasonable client would not expect you to work 24/7 or even be available for contact. You can set up email auto replies so the client knows you will get back to them after the weekend. Seriously you need to have time away and your clients understand this.

I agree with rbtrsmith, it's not a matter that I'm lazy and don't want to respond. It's a principle of self-respect, a good professional company delivers great work and support during office hours and maybe a few hours after 6pm during weekdays. A client will respect this, just as it would be unreasonable to call your client at 7pm during a weekday, you just don't do it. You respect each others time, so why would the client not need to respect yours? I think responding at all times would be more convenient for a consultant/freelancer. I think for an agency it just shows how serious you take your working hours and that you work organized and effectively.

 

The client may like it if you respond at all times, sure, but we all know what happens if you give them a finger, they'll take your whole hand. Respect your own time, respect your prices, respect your working hours!

So what do you do with international clients whom you have to speak to outside of UK 9-5 time? I often find I'm talking to them at 9pm on occasion because it's only mid-morning their time.

So what do you do with international clients whom you have to speak to outside of UK 9-5 time? I often find I'm talking to them at 9pm on occasion because it's only mid-morning their time.

 

I guess in that case you have to make an exception, but for email communication especially if it is not urgent they can wait until you are in your office. Of course even international clients should respect weekends and vacation too!

I personally read my emails at least every 8-12 hours what ever day it is. I would rather spend the 30 or so minutes a day to get everything sorted so Monday morning i can get in the office and have a easier start to the day.

I guess in that case you have to make an exception, but for email communication especially if it is not urgent they can wait until you are in your office. Of course even international clients should respect weekends and vacation too!

 

Generally emails I only answer during UK "working hours", but yes for international clients it's a case of being adaptable for phone calls and we always prearrange a time anyway so we both know we're going to be around.

Think of it like football. Take your eye off the ball or let it run away from you and someone else will pick it up and take it away from you.

 

If you run your own business but want to work like an employee and ignore clients until office hours sooner or later someone will cotton on that if they respond and react whenever they will pick up the work. Why should businesses, or even private clients, deal with someone intent on making it difficult for them?

 

It's called customer service.

Think of it like football. Take your eye off the ball or let it run away from you and someone else will pick it up and take it away from you.

 

If you run your own business but want to work like an employee and ignore clients until office hours sooner or later someone will cotton on that if they respond and react whenever they will pick up the work. Why should businesses, or even private clients, deal with someone intent on making it difficult for them?

 

It's called customer service.

 

Many of the most successful IT entrepreneurs take time away, especially weekends. Having time off outside of normal working hours does not equal poor customer service. You're not running a McDonald's restaurant. Clients get that--I am sure they ALL have downtime themselves.

 

You keep your client by building a better product that makes your client more money. Higher conversions, faster loading times, more professional appearance, less bugs the list goes on...

The agency I worked for never had any trouble holding onto clients because we focused on delivering a better product for our clients, but we never responded to emails outside of office hours. The company has grown exponentially the past 3 years where many of the competing agencies have either gone bust or lost clients to us.

 

How are you supposed to have a life, travel, spend time with your family without downtime. Take a read of Sir Richard Branson's writings, he massively attributes his success to having a healthy work-life balance - and you don't get much more successful than him.

Edited March 10, 201610 yr by rbrtsmith

 

As I said above, I can understand pandering to people like this if you're new to the industry and trying to impress, and if you're not exactly swamped with work.

 

However, once you have the clients I'd say the exact opposite of what you're saying is true - a professional is not somebody who has to commit every waking moment of their life to their job and their clients. A good working relationship should be built on mutual respect, and part of that respect is the client accepting that you have a right to your own life too.

 

Frankly, if another business comes in and "steals" a customer who would not accept that I don't work on the weekends or late into the night, then good luck to them - if a customer is so awkward that they think I have no right to my own private life then good riddance - the other company can deal with the stress and lack of work/life balance.

 

A while back I ran my own web design agency with my friend (didn't last that long as we were not the best salesmen and we were both offered decent jobs in the industry, but hey ho...), and I learned my lesson quickly there. One lady phoned us up and started with a great big long rant about her previous web developer. Talking about how useless he was and so on. At the time I just wanted the business, so I met her anyway. She told me her previous developer and her argued so much that he had actually bought her a copy of dreamweaver with his own money and told her to finish the site herself.

 

Out of naivety we took her on as a client, but it didn't last long. She asked me about SEO very early on, and when I told her Google ignores meta keywords she wouldn't accept it at all. She called me a liar. Outraged by that I sent her a link on Google's own domain that actually stated very clearly that they ignore meta keywords. Still wasn't happy and thought she knew better. At that point I sacked her (because you can sack clients) and told her I didn't want her business.

 

In my experience, the clients who are most awkward like this are the ones who respect what we do the least. Same goes for clients who only want to pay little - I just refuse to work on something unless it's worth my time because A - My time is actually precious to me and B - People who pay little are often the worst clients that will take up the bulk of your time.

 

I include on that list people who are unreasonable about you not responding during unsociable hours and/or weekends. If a courteous response explaining that I don't work in the evenings and weekends does nothing to stop people contacting me at those times, I'll then ignore them completely, only responding during working hours, and if they continue to complain I'll consider sacking them like I sacked that woman.

 

I don't need the hassle. Professional relationships are born out of mutual trust and respect, and if you don't have that from your clients then you are either not very good at your job or you have the wrong clients.

Excellent replies everybody. I really like the discussion, hearing everyone's different perspective. I agree with the above 2 posts.

Edited March 10, 201610 yr by Labelarot45

Annoying but customer is king so I always reply them even in holidays/weekdays.

 

I think none of customer want to wait for long time like 1 - 2 days but you can take leave for 1 day in every week however it will affect your business so give only few minute on holiday and If possible then reply them quickly.

 

In holidays/weekdays I give only 1 hour in checking my email.

For the people who do reply - do you mean you just respond to the email or also fix whatever the issue is that you're being emailed about?

You can just leave automated replies for when you are out of the office so there's no need to be checking / responding emails during your downtime.

Hmm, Richard Branson, a public school toff whose pater gave him the the equivalent of £3 million in today's value to start up the Virgin record chain. I have no doubt Dickie boy had a man to do his 'out-of-hours' work from day one. In fact I doubt dickie boy has ever actually done a day's work in his life.

 

When you are wealthy enough you don't need to work or indeed be any good at anything, you just hire in lackeys who are good at it and need to work in order to live.

 

Over twenty years ago when I went self employed I went into partnership with someone, they handled the business and admin whilst I handled the engineering and operations side. One Saturday morning he had a phone call from a client we did work for and told them to ring back Monday. Monday never came of course. The client went to a competitor and they jumped in to seize the opportunity with both hands. Within ten years they had milked the relationship to the point where they had over 1000 employees on six sites across the UK.

 

When I bumped into the client some years later he told me that his manager phoned but as we weren't interested they went elsewhere. So there we have it, don't bother and they go elsewhere and opportunities come but once.

 

This is the difference in the employer and employee mindsets, the butcher and the block, the organ grinder and the monkey, masters and chattels.

Wow big topic. So for me I'm freelance and work with around 30 clients. Depending on the client will depend whether I reply outside of 'hours'. Because I'm freelance I have a relaxed environment with my clients, very friendly, which some would say is risky but I find my invoices paid within 2 hours of being sent which is a nice side effect

 

This approach for me works. Most my clients are family people, understand I have a life, wife and kids as many of them do too. If they email outside of hours it's normally one of two things; they had an 'idea' whilst having breakfast or something is wrong with the website. The former I sometimes reply to if nothing else to say 'sure, we can look at this next week' but the client has no expectation that I will answer over the weekend. With website down I always reply to as it's critical but they're on the clock for investigation.

 

The phone however is never answered outside of hours, else they'll be calling you at 9am on a Sunday as they had an idea. I learn't this the hard way and had to ditch the client.

I've had them calling me at 3.00am. Once it was a client who had had a dream about the colours.

When I was a freelancer, I lost a couple of potentially big clients exactly because of this (not my proudest moment, I know). On the other hand, I had a couple of big clients that completely understood my working hours (one of them even remembered my birthday and said I should absolutely take a day off and continue working the next day ). I'm usually away from my desktop during the weekends but I make sure that checking my emails is the first thing to do on Monday mornings. I'd say there's really no rules here. It's all about your company policy and good communication with clients. Although, if it's a matter of urgency, you should absolutely NOT ignore your clients emails. Good thing we have smartphones nowadays and we can reply emails on the fly .

Wow big topic. So for me I'm freelance and work with around 30 clients. Depending on the client will depend whether I reply outside of 'hours'. Because I'm freelance I have a relaxed environment with my clients, very friendly, which some would say is risky but I find my invoices paid within 2 hours of being sent which is a nice side effect

 

This approach for me works. Most my clients are family people, understand I have a life, wife and kids as many of them do too. If they email outside of hours it's normally one of two things; they had an 'idea' whilst having breakfast or something is wrong with the website. The former I sometimes reply to if nothing else to say 'sure, we can look at this next week' but the client has no expectation that I will answer over the weekend. With website down I always reply to as it's critical but they're on the clock for investigation.

 

The phone however is never answered outside of hours, else they'll be calling you at 9am on a Sunday as they had an idea. I learn't this the hard way and had to ditch the client.

Yes I see what you mean.

 

I've had them calling me at 3.00am. Once it was a client who had had a dream about the colours.

Lmfao! That's terrible. Shame on that guy.

When I was a freelancer, I lost a couple of potentially big clients exactly because of this (not my proudest moment, I know). On the other hand, I had a couple of big clients that completely understood my working hours (one of them even remembered my birthday and said I should absolutely take a day off and continue working the next day ). I'm usually away from my desktop during the weekends but I make sure that checking my emails is the first thing to do on Monday mornings. I'd say there's really no rules here. It's all about your company policy and good communication with clients. Although, if it's a matter of urgency, you should absolutely NOT ignore your clients emails. Good thing we have smartphones nowadays and we can reply emails on the fly .

I wish it was like you say when it comes to e-mailing from smartphones. I have been looking absolutely everywhere for an android app that enables you to have a HTML e-mail signature, so they won't notice any difference in the e-mail layout. It seems only iOS apps enable this option...............ahhhhhhh. If I did have an e-mail app that enabled HTML signatures that would make my life so much easier.

Why do you need an HTML signature? If you are emailing me I have your email address so all you need is your name and a phone number, neither of which need to be HTML.

 

If the message is personalised all the relevant information should be in the body of the message, not tacked on the end.

Our experience is that customers are thankful if they get assistance and responses on weekends and public holidays. There is no point in not answering mails on weekends. If you are doing business on the Internet, your must be present 24/7. Think about other cultures, too. What a Sunday is for Christian countries is a normal workday in many others.

Any reasonable client would not expect you to work 24/7 or even be available for contact. You can set up email auto replies so the client knows you will get back to them after the weekend. Seriously you need to have time away and your clients understand this.

Totally agree with this. Everybody needs a private life and to charge himself.

When I first started I would be as available and responsive as possible but those were the days when most people still used landlines with answerphones so few expected an instant response outside office hours but you could still get clients who wanted an answer immediately. As email became more prevalent a quicker response was expected and slightly extended working hours. But it is probably only the advent of smart phones which have made some people start to think you should be available at any time.

 

Now my solution is a compromise. I never answer the phone at weekends except by prior arrangement with an international client. If I'm not doing something specific (event, travel, socialising etc) I check email regularly including evenings and weekends and in the week I try to respond to international enquiries or technical problems if they're out of hours, on weekends I respond if it is really important.

 

Then I pick a time every few months to take some unplugged time - but I warn key customers in advance so they know to schedule their projects accordingly.

 

But bear in mind that for some people, dumping an email, or question on you is their way of drawing a line under their week so they can forget things until Monday - they might not want a quick response.

reply instantly if email has importance, otherwise pending it.

 

Until you reply you won't know how important the email might be, and if you leave it too long you might miss a one time chance in life.

 

If you run your own business you have to make certain sacrifices, especially when getting off the ground, and I'm sorry to say a personal life is one of them. If you can't put in that level of commitment then you need to work for someone who can.