Web Savvy Mama Blog: What do you want to learn today?
Follow WebSavvyMama on Twitter Do you have a topic you'd like to see covered? Feel free to drop me a note. Please make sure to mention that it's blog related in the message. If I pick your topic I'll include a link back to your website!

Ah, the joys of email

Posted: February 23, 2010 | by Kristine | Filed under: I talk alot

Sitting up at 1am my husband asks “Kristine, what are you doing?” My response is usually simple: “Emailing”.

Thunderbird EmailPeople don’t really look at email as taking up much time. Email was supposed to make things easier, right? Today, while looking through sent messages looking for a specific email I realized just how much time I spend emailing! I thought this was interesting and would like to share my find with my readers and clients. I think we can firmly stick this one into the hidden value of my web design services. Unlike a lot of businesses, I have always offered free support and try my best to answer emails and help clients with learning their site or simply making sure the design process and site vision are are on track. All of this adds up and I just thought I’d share a few numbers.

4-8. The average number of emails sent back and forth during the quote process.
30-60. The average emails that are sent from me to clients as part of back and forth during the design process on small projects.
100-130+. The number of emails I’ve sent out to clients on average on larger projects.

And when I say that I mean that range would be one person! So during the design time frame when I take on 4 projects at a time I could easily sent out 400 or more emails to the 4 clients. The design time frame is 6-8 weeks. Some emails are quick, 4 minutes to write. Others take more research, 30-40 minutes. Lets say the average is 10 minutes per email. That’s roughly 67 hours of email time, or 10 hours per week and this is a LOW estimate not including the quote process.

Email! I never thought it would be so time consuming! So there you have it. This is the reason my husband finds me up in the middle of the night working, wondering what I could possibly be doing.

So when considering the value of my web design services, here is a hidden value that you are getting when you work with Web Savvy Mama. The one on one attention from me when I am making sure there is good communication and that you fully understand how your site functions.

By the way, check out Thunderbird email client. Tabbed email, filtering, sorting and all your email accounts readable right in one inbox. I love all the features and it does help me save some time!