Brad Roberts

Unfortunately, Internet "gurus" have sold us on the idea that auto-responders are the answer to timely communication.  They've told us, "You'll lose business if you don't respond immediately."  Sure, everyone would like a quick response, but they also want a real one.  Here are three reasons why I do not use auto-replies.

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Remember return receipts? Those annoying popups in your email that said, "So-and-so has asked to be notified when you read this message."  Maybe you still use them (yikes).  Boomerang however, takes an unobtrusive approach.  It returns an email to your inbox if you do not receive a reply within a specific time.

Their "Send Later" feature is nice too. It's great for writing email now, and well.... sending it later :)

I've been using Boomerang for GMail for several months and I recommend it to anyone in the real estate business.  They have a free version, so give it a try.

The iPhone has push notifications for email, but...

1. Like everyone else, I get tons of bulk email.  It's mostly newsletters, announcements, etc.  I don't want my phone to bing-bong every time I receive an email. Only when I receive one from a real person.

2. I don't want my phone to ring at 3am, even if it's from a real person. 

Here's what I did.

1. First, I created two email addresses.  One that I give to real people, and another that I use for online signups.

2. Next, I installed Boxcar on my iPhone and added a new email service.  This gave me a special Boxcar email address that I can forward important emails to, which will popup on my phone.  I changed the settings to only notify me between 6am and 9pm.
   
   
3. Finally, I setup a filter in GMail that forwards my important emails to my new Boxcar email address.  In this case, an important email is any email sent to my real people address.
   
   

You can also tell Boxcar to alert you about new tweets, facebook activity, and a ton of other stuff.