It all started with an oversight. The American Ray Tomlinson worked as a programmer at the company BBN. He and his colleagues were supposed to be developing a data transmission system for the US Department of Defense. Along the way, he found a way to send text files from one computer to another via the Arpanet, a predecessor of the Internet. The year was 1971 and it was the birth of e-mail. After that, there was no stopping electronic correspondence and e-mail has become an indispensable means of private and professional communication.
In 2018, 281 billion emails were sent and received worldwide, with only 55% of all emails sent worldwide containing legitimate content, the other 45% being spam emails. According to statistics, this figure is set to rise to 320 billion emails sent and received every day by 2021. However, as email traffic increases, so will the level of email clutter in your inbox.
E-mail flood as a time and nerve eater
After a newly received and read e-mail, it takes an average of 15 minutes before you can concentrate on your original work tasks again. The simple sending of electronic messages should actually make the workflow easier and increase work efficiency, but the constant interruptions to the work process caused by new e-mails distract the recipient from the original work tasks, makes it difficult to concentrate and puts them under stress, because every e-mail should be answered as quickly as possible. The flood of e-mails is a real time waster, because all e-mails should be read and answered quickly. If you receive more than 100 emails a day, it can quickly happen that you lose track and leave one or two emails unanswered. This can lead to unnecessary delays in projects or slow down the workflow.
What can you do to save time and keep track of the flood of e-mails?
A few useful tips to help you cope with the flood of emails:
– Do not subscribe to newsletters and notifications without thinking.
– Only read the e-mails that really relate to your tasks.
– Think about whether you really need to be informed about everything. If you are in “CC” in too many emails, you should clarify whether this is really necessary, as such emails are often not primarily relevant for the recipient.
– Sort your e-mails according to importance or create folders.
However, these steps alone are often not enough to overwhelm the flood of emails. With the help of the smart CMR software 1Tool, you can stem the flood of emails quickly and effectively, because:
– With the 1Tool Support Tracking System, e-mails are received automatically and tasks are created and assigned to employees. An automatic reply is sent to the customer. This makes their day-to-day work easier and leaves more time for daily tasks, increasing productivity. Customers and partners are also more satisfied because they always receive an answer and know that their concerns are being taken care of.
– Tasks and projects can be organized using project tools from 1Tool. This reduces the number of internal emails and your company will benefit from the time saved.
– Direct access to emails from 1Tool CRM software. To help you keep track of the huge volume of daily emails, 1Tool allows you to assign your email folders to various contacts. Email traffic is structured and simplified. This means that all relevant data can be found in the corresponding customer file at any time and you benefit from a complete contact history.
With 1Tool you can get a grip on the flood of e-mails and gain more time for the essentials.
