When Emailing Vendors, Clients Want Auto-acknowledgments and Same-Day Answers. A survey of 240 workers who communicate with vendors via email.

1. 22%
42%
36%
0% 25% 50% 75% 100%
Yes
No
Not currently employed
Sample Size: 1,000 (All Respondents)
Do you ever need to communicate with vendors or suppliers to the
organization you work for?

2. Do you ever need to communicate with vendors or suppliers to the
organization you work for?
Which of the following groups describes your current age?
18-24 25-34 35-44 45-54 55-64 65+
(%) (%) (%) (%) (%) (%)
Yes ⇑ 34 29 28 25 18 ⇓ 9
No 47 49 ⇑ 51 47 36 ⇓ 24
Not currently employed ⇓ 19 ⇓ 22 ⇓ 21 27 ⇑ 45 ⇑ 68
Base n=120 n=190 n=210 n=190 n=130 n=160
Sample Size: 1,000 (All Respondents)
Which of the following groups describes your annual household income?
Below
$25,000
$25,000 -
$34,999
$35,000 -
$49,999
$50,000 -
$74,999
$75,000 -
$99,999
$100,000 -
$149,999
(%) (%) (%) (%) (%) (%)
Yes ⇓ 12 19 21 23 ⇑ 37 ⇑ 37
No ⇓ 35 51 44 47 45 48
Not currently employed ⇑ 54 30 34 30 ⇓ 18 ⇓ 15
Base n=240 n=100 n=135 n=210 n=148 n=115

3. 41%
33%
16%
5%
5%
0% 25% 50% 75% 100%
Extremely important
Very important
Moderately important
Slightly important
Not at all important
Sample Size: 240 (24% of Respondents)
Imagine that you email a question to a vendor that supplies your
organization. How important is it to you to receive an immediate
response from a bot or representative simply acknowledging receipt
of your email?

4. How would you rate responsiveness if you received an answer…?
36
48
51
59
69
76
37
30
33
28
22
16
21
20
14
12
7
6
5
1
3
2
2
1
1
1
0% 25% 50% 75% 100%
The next business day
The same business day but after work hours
In 6 hours
In 4 hours
In 2 hours
In 1 hour
Excellent Good Acceptable Poor Terrible
Sample Size: 240 (24% of Respondents)

5. 34%
26%
25%
24%
16%
12%
11%
11%
9%
6%
0% 25% 50% 75% 100%
Helpful
Professional
Fine since will deal with it at work
Vendor is overworked
Vendor is well staffed
Unprofessional
Probably from an offshore service representative
Probably from a U.S. service representative
Annoyed since need to deal with it then
Unhelpful
Sample Size: 240 (24% of Respondents)
Note: Respondents could select multiple options
What do you think of when you get an email from a vendor after
hours? - Top 10

6. What do you think of when you get an email from a vendor after
hours?
Option Rank Response %
Helpful 1 34%
Professional 2 26%
Fine since will deal with it at work 3 25%
Vendor is overworked 4 24%
Vendor is well staffed 5 16%
Unprofessional 6 12%
Probably from an offshore service representative 7 11%
Probably from a U.S. service representative 8 11%
Annoyed since need to deal with it then 9 9%
Unhelpful 10 6%
Other 11 3%
None of the above 12 7%
Sample Size: 240 (24% of Respondents)
Note: Respondents could select multiple options

7. What's your number-one pet peeve when communicating with a
vendor via email?

8. What's your number-one pet peeve when communicating with a
vendor via email?
Word Frequency Example Quote
Response 22 "That a response is not received and or acknowledged within the same day or
next day."
Time 18 "That they sometimes fail to respond, so I don't know if my message was
received."
Answer 15 "Having to repeat my information or my problem several times to get an
answer."
None 13 "None really."
Email 12 "When you keep having to email back and forth when you could just pick up a
phone and get it done quicker."
Day 10 "The vendor tells me that they will get back to me as soon as possible, and I
don't hear from them for 2-3 business days."
Question 10 "The number one pet peeve is when they ask questions that are clearly stated
in the email."
Get 9 "Not knowing if they read the email or how long they would get back to me."
Respond 9 "I work in a restaurant and I hate when we need the vendor makes a mistake
and is slow to respond."
Receive 8 "The answer I receive from them does not help resolve the issue."

9. Methodology
This online survey had 1,000 respondents. It was fielded from April 5 to April 7, 2019.
The results presented in this report were weighted by the following variables:
• What is your gender?
• Which of the following groups describes your current age?
• Are you of Hispanic, Spanish or Latino descent?
• Which of the following best describes your ethnicity?
• What is the highest degree or level of school you have completed?

10. Crosstab Methodology
Crosstab Table Notes:
• Only crosstab tables with significant differences of at least 10 percentage points are
included here.
• If the difference is higher at a statistically significant level, the cell is marked with
the up - arrow symbol ⇑. If it is lower, the down-arrow symbol ⇓ is used.
• Columns with fewer than 30 responses (i.e. degrees of freedom) are ignored for
statistical significance comparisons.
• Crosstabs with no significant difference greater than 10 percentage points are not
presented.
• To fit onto a single slide, some crosstabs have had columns without differences
omitted. See the spreadsheet for the full crosstabs.
• Crosstabs show only unweighted results.
• See the accompanying spreadsheet for all tables.

11. Researchscape International
Researchscape International is a market-research consultancy
specializing in custom surveys. For questions about this or other
research, please contact us at +1-888-983-1675 x1 or visit our
website, http://www.researchscape.com/.