Electronic Response Protocol – Email, Phone, Text Messages

I often get emails, calls and text messages from people asking for advice or assistance with resumes, job searches, employment opportunities and the like, and find it fascinating the lack of response time when it comes to replying back once I have given some advice or followup.

There are already Robert’s Rules of Order, so I can’t call these that, but let’s call these Braathe’s Rules of Electronic Communication:

1. If you receive an email, you should respond to it within 24 hours during the week and 48 hours on the weekend (unless you have an auto responder setup.

2. If you receive a text message, you should respond to that within 1 hour unless you have pre-arranged or clarified your text message policy

3. If you receive a phone call, similarly, you should have a voice message indicating an appropriate time in which you will respond.

4. If you have a chat window open in a program like AIM, Facebook etc and don’t want to be contacted, hide that person from your contact list or put up an Away message so you will only respond to those who reach out to you.

5. If you are contacted via message through LinkedIn, Facebook or Twitter, respond back within 12-24 hours unless it is a weekend.

What do you think of these rules? What would you add/delete/change?