IDEA: How many customer calls/requests/inquiries to your sales department go unanswered? How long?

How do you know if all of the voicemails, letters, envelopes, overnight packages or emails sent to your company’s sales personnel are answered in a reasonable amount of time?  If you do not know, assign these customer reply standards within the sales department to be followed. If you do not know, discuss these issues and develop customer response rules for all to follow in order to answer customers’ requests in a reasonable amount of time.  Have incoming emails copied to others in the sales department who can notice which have not been answered within a reasonable amount of time for your industry.  Ask your IT person to copy all incoming emails to other designated personnel who can follow up. Allow those people to see when all customer emails are answered and which are still waiting for someone to call.  Voicemail notices can be sent to someone in the department to do the follow-up with a customer in the event the normal assigned person is out.