Give more than you receive. If someone spent the time to complete that contact form or your website, spend more than 5 seconds on a lame email response.

Always expect that you will, and should, give more to prospects and customers than you will receive from them. It seems like a common sense statement, but the rule is regularly broken in email communication.

I see prospects spending their time to complete online forms, some quite complicated, only to get some lame response from a salesperson. The response might be all boilerplate and canned, or a ridiculously unhelpful one-line response like, “What more can I tell you?” or “What are you interested in?” That’s a quick way to get no where.

Think of how often you fill out forms on websites. Not often if you’re like most of the web-using population. It takes a strong desire for more to make most people expend the energy to complete a contact form. If your prospect took their time to complete that form and send it to you, you should be spending at least that time and more to develop a more thoughtful response than “What kind of information you’re looking for?”

Simple and unhelpful responses are unlikely to ever get another email back.

Be conversational. Ask a specific question. Tell a joke. Do something more.