Email is important, but not usually urgent. Clients come to us with inbox overwhelm, and fear of losing important information in the black hole of a cluttered inbox. After gaining valuable experience and receiving expert guidance, we have developed several practices that promote both organization and a healthy work-life balance.  

Working hours

We send emails during business hours only. You will not receive an email from us on the weekend as that steals your time to recharge. If we are working on the weekend, we will schedule all email for you to receive during standard business hours. If you send an email on the weekend, please expect that we will not see it until Monday.

If you receive an out-of-office response from us that we are on vacation, responses will be delayed.

If we receive a notice that you are out-of-office, we expect that you won’t answer us until you return. 

Notifications and Responses

We do not always have our notifications on, we choose to process our emails at designated times and not react to rings, pings, or buzzes all day. We give ourselves time to think, create, and strategize. We try to reply within 1 business day. If your request is extremely time sensitive, you may text us at the number in our email signature lines as this is usually monitored by a member of our team during business hours.  If you respond immediately to a message from us, there is a chance we did not see it right away, so please do not think we are ignoring you. 

Subject Lines

Clear subject lines help us to prioritize our email inbox. The clearer your subject line, the better we are able to help you. 

If you have an action that is time-sensitive, it is much easier for us to note that if it is mentioned in the subject line. I.E: Action Needed by 6/15/23: Worker’s Compensation Audit – This will help us to know that it is time-sensitive, and the message includes action items for our team.  

Copy and BCC

Generally speaking, if we are on the “CC:” line (as opposed to the “To:” line) this means that we do not have an action to take and the email is for information purposes only.  

Most often, “BCC:” is great for post-introduction and inter-company information. This notifies the originator that we are taking it further, but keeps their email from being cluttered by unnecessary subsequent messages. I.E: Thank you for the introduction, Jessica! Moving you to BCC to not clutter your inbox.  

Reply All

Did you know that using Microsoft Outlook web app, you can remove the option to reply to just the sender? Using reply all ensures that everyone included is in the loop, and information is not missed. Replying to just the sender means that those that really need the information may not get it, and mistakes may happen.

We will always reply to all recipients, and request that you do as well. An exception to this is when a recipient is no longer required on the email, in which case we will employ the information mentioned in Copy and BCC above.   

Acknowledgments

Emails generally do not require acknowledgement of receipt. We won’t send you an email that just says “Thanks!”, “Okay!”, or “Got it!”. That is just another email for you to process. We also don’t expect you to send those emails for the same reason. We trust that you received our email, and you can trust that we have received yours. Some of our emails, such as proposals and invoices, come from software applications that include a log of when the email was sent, received, opened, etc. 

 Technology isn’t perfect, and mistakes do happen, so we make a regular habit of checking our Junk/Spam folder at least twice per month to ensure nothing is permanently missed. 

Email Efficiency

Email may not be the most effective form of communication to solve all problems. We strive to give our clients the high-touch service they have invested in, and these things can’t be done back and forth via email. If we feel that a meeting is more beneficial, we will reach out to schedule a video, phone call or in person meeting to continue the conversation.  

Client Communication

Each and every client receives their own client specific inbox “@jessicajonesaccounting.com”. This allows for the best communication between our team and you. Sending your email to a single member of our team breaks down the seamless communication structure that allows us to operate at our best, and creates bottlenecks and inefficiencies.