As recently as 1950, the postal service made two deliveries each day: morning and afternoon. You’d receive a letter in the morning, and you would respond right away by writing a reply, then depositing that letter in the afternoon pickup. Considering the technology of the period, the postal service’s system provided quality, fast communications.

Add the telephone, facsimile, voicemail, FedEx, email, instant message, text messaging, and social media. Communication that used to take a two days now takes only seconds.

Not only do we depend on speedy communications to keep things rolling, but we expect it. These days, when we call someone, we EXPECT them to answer. When we leave a voicemail message or send an email to a person, we EXPECT them to reply in a timely manner. And when we send a text message, a tweet, or any other kind of instant message, we EXPECT a nearly immediate reply.

Customers demand fast communications. And businesses must play along if they are interested in having a profitable transaction with the customer.

For example, last year my wife and I were shopping for a preschool. We contacted School A and School B…

• We sent an email to School A with some basic questions. The next business day we had not heard back, so we decided to call them. We got voicemail and left a message. The person “in charge” called us back not the same day, but the NEXT day… And we had an all-too-short conversation. This was about 48 hours after our first contact attempt via email. We wondered how hard it would be to reach the school in an emergency. It may have been faster to write a letter and take it to the post office!
• We did not have an email address for School B so we used the telephone. The person “in charge” answered the call, spoke to us for 45 minutes, while answering dozens of our questions, then she invited us for a mandatory meeting to make sure it was a good fit — before any papers were signed and before any money exchanged hands. That meeting took a bit more than one hour, but we were happy with the new relationship that was built on trust and understanding.
• We enrolled at School B at a cost of about $5,000 per year. There will be two years of preschool before Kindergarten. And that’s how School B made $10,000 in one day.

At Faith in Marketing we have ALWAYS made an extra effort to always be available to both our paying clients and our prospective clients. We take great pride in our ability to take advantage of current technology, speeding up communications and making them more efficient. Frequently we hear from clients who tell us, “I used to work with So-and-So Graphics Company, and sometimes it would take them 3 days to get back to me.”

Unbelievable. And unacceptable.

During regular business hours, you can expect to hear back from Faith in Marketing usually within minutes. At night and on the weekends, within the hour. Don’t believe it? Call or Text (858) 877-3733, or write to info@faithinmarketing.com.

Of course we take snail mail, too. Just not on Sundays.