Timing is Everything

I'm an eMusic subscriber, and I last Monday sent in a question to their customer service group. On Friday, I received a survey asking how their customer service department did in responding. Since no one had responded to my question as of yet, I ranked them pretty poorly. An hour or so later, I did receive the response from Customer Service about my question.

Now, I'm not sure if my question got answered because of how poorly I scored them on the survey; but if I had received that survey after having received my answer I would have scored them better.

It struck me that this was a case of bad timing for eMusic. When it comes to a customer survey like this, you should make sure that you send the survey after you respond to the customer's needs. But you want to make sure that you look at the timing of your other emails as well.

Are you sending a promotional email to customers who just purchased the product you're promoting? Probably not the best time to hit them with an offer. Maybe offer those customers something different. What about if a customer has come to the point in their purchase history where they need to replenish a product? Are you sending them a reminder?

Timing is everything.