What is the appropriate email response time

[Ricky58]

I am using Outlook Express for handling my emails. Yesterday I sent an email to a client regarding my business and also I mentioned that I would be waiting for his immediate response. But after sending, I waited for about 4 hours but didn't got any response from him. So I called him and he said that he just received my email. Does an email takes so long to reach your opponent? What is the appropriate email response time?

[Grohu]

Generally there is no fix response time for any email. It varies from situation to situation. They vary from one hour to one week. Many a times as soon as people receive the email, they will try to respond to it within 1 hour. However this doesn't mean that everyone will follow this rule. This depends on person to person.

[Rkhon]

Generally people follow some rules when response to emails is concerned. They divide there emails into 3 categories: Post campaign challenge-response emails, Complaints or requests emails and Suggestions or Feedback emails. The first is very important according to them and so they think that this kind of emails should be responded immediately. The second kind of emails can be replied at a later time and so the response time for them involves 24 business hours. The third kind of emails are of least priority. So they never mind responding this emails even after 1 business day.

[deveritt]

Email response completely depends on how it is presented and also the network. If you have used some words or terms that is not at all professional then the opponent will think that it could be spam and so it is left on him if he wants to open your email or not. If you have sent ti properly but the network medium that is used by the email client program then it may even take a longer duration to reach the recipient and thus the response time may delay even further.