Many of the emails you send out need follow-up, and it’s likely that you don’t have a system for handling this. The result? No follow-up.
There’s an easy way to remedy this situation.
Try using FollowUp.cc, an automatic service that sends you a reminder email when someone you sent an email hasn’t responded within a given period of time.
For example, let’s say you send out an email that you want to be reminded to follow-up on in three days. Just add “3days@FollowUp.cc” to the BCC field of the email you send out. If the person hasn’t responded in three days, FollowUp.cc will send you an email reminder with a copy of the original email.
Productivity expert Ari Meisel (author of the highly recommended book Less Doing, More Living) is a huge proponent of FollowUp.cc, and says, “80 percent of my emails go out with a FollowUp.cc, and there’s one simple reason: five seconds after that email goes out, it’s gone from my mind.”
Meisel offers other examples of where FollowUp.cc is useful. For instance, what if someone you need to collaborate with goes on vacation, and they say, “Get back to me on August 26 when I’ll be back in the office?” No problem—just send an email with a BCC to FollowUp.cc.
The service also creates a calendar, so if you want, you can look ahead and see all the follow-ups you have coming up. The emails could be from different times in the past, but they’ll all get collected together on the right day. There’s even a snooze function, so if a reminder comes in and it’s not the right time for you to deal with it, you can defer it until later.
(If you’re interested in learning more about email productivity, sign up for one of our Small Firm Bootcamps.)