Emails Going Astray

If you negotiate the minefield in the drive
and beat the dogs
and cheat the cold electronic eyes
and if you make it past the shotgun in the hall.
Dial the combination.
Open the priest hole,
and if I'm in I'll tell you.
--- Pink Floyd, The Final Cut

I'm not that hard to reach. At least not on purpose.

Why You May Disagree
You won't visit this blog daily. You're busy and there's usually one article a week. The day of posting varies with my schedule (my target is Tuesday morning). So the best way to get to keep up to date is by subscribing for updates by email. When there's something new, you'll then get an email from a formerly-Australian company. The notifications use a real email address for an account. Some of you have been sending replies but I haven't been reading them because I don't monitor that account.

Advisors would say that I wasn't replying to their emails. I'd check my Blackberry and Microsoft Outlook and see no message. Must be transmission problem at their end, I figured. Wrong.

Here's an example of a series of messages I ignored

(1st email not received ... really)

(2nd email) still waiting: Hey Promod still awaiting your phone call. I have business to do and would appreciate your assistance please.

3rd time asking: call me please.

This case had a premium over $2.7 million spread over 3 years. The good news is that the advisor phoned and we spoke --- after several rounds of phone tag.

Lessons Learned
Ease of use increases usage. It's much easier to reply to an email than to look up an email address. How can you make it easier for your clients to reach you?

I'd tell you to send work-related email to my work email account but human behavior is difficult to change. So I have started monitoring the account in question.

So thanks for the emails. (Also, feel free to share your comments on this or any other post. You can do this anonymously.)