When you initially start your business and launch your online presence it can be instinctive to want to offer personal responses to all of your contact emails. However as business grows this can become more difficult and there are ways to avoid any back up or delays in contact.

Another thing to keep in mind is that you have a potentially global audience. While you may be sleeping it could be 9am elsewhere, and a potential customer may find that waiting until your business hours is just too long to hear back. Because of these reasons an automatic responder is a great idea.

Using an auto responder means that you can have contact with the sender of all emails immediately. As soon as you receive the message, a return email is sent letting them know information you have pre-filled. Often this involves mentioning business hours and time zones, so that they know when to expect a personal response. It is also a great way to let the person contacting you that the website is current and email addresses are being read, even if it takes a number of hours to respond.

Its also a great option to add any detail on length of time they can expect to wait. The generic response is usually within 24 hours; giving you time to access answers and give a considered response to any queries. It is also a really easy way to explain your products or services a little more. You can add a paragraph about what you do, and who your business is aimed at within this auto responder which will provide the potential customer with some new information and feel like a justified response.

Setting up auto responders is quite simple and its usually contained within any website-based email address programs as well as the desktop