Complaint to boss

[Meltingnotsleeping]

New colleague has been with the company a few weeks.

We have a shared '[email protected]' email address for new clients to contact us via website plus each have our own name@ email addresses too.

We all check the office@email address and respond to incoming queries.

Colleague had answered a query with a standard response. This may lead to new business on which colleague, although not more senior, would take the lead. Her response included the offer of a follow-up conversation. Client responded quickly saying he would like to have conversation ASAP and here is phone number, except phone no is missing.

I log in 40 mins later, see his email, reply to him, politely letting him know phone number is missing and letting him know she would call ASAP once we had it. I then send internal message to colleague letting her know he wanted to have the conversation urgently in case she didn't check back again that day.

No response from colleague thanking me for letting her know but I shrugged that off.

Just found out, purely by chance, that colleague has emailed our boss, complaining that I had interrupted her communications with client and made us look unprofessional because two different people had responded to him and she doesn't expect it to happen again.

She hasn't mentioned it to me and our boss hasn't brought it up with me.

It is probably relevant that we have had some differences of opinion in recent meetings where she has wanted to take some shortcuts that wouldn't be too ethical and I've had to challenge it politely but firmly. It's always been confirmed later that I did the right thing.

We have no set protocols around how these emails are managed as we've never needed them up til now and what I did would generally be considered perfectly normal in our organisation.

AIBU to thing what I did was perfectly appropriate or would you consider it unprofessional for a second person to email you in the circumstances I have described.

I can see what she was annoyed, if she was going to be dealing with it you should have left it to her.

But I would have done the same as you to be helpful

Quite the opposite, Given that it was urgent, I’d be pleased my error in omitting my phone number was picked up. She’s had her nose put out of joint because she missed it, and any decent boss will see straight through that.

You should have left it to your colleague. She would have noticed the phone number was missing and made contact herself. Not really any reasons for you to get involved.

It doesn’t warrant a complaint to the boss but I wouldn’t be too happy if you’d done it to me.

As the customer, I would also prefer my business was dealt with by one central person, to avoid things being lost in translation etc. Having two contacts and email addresses emailing can cause some confusion.

If she had already responded to the email telling the client that the number was missing, then there was no need for you to do it.
Had she already replied? You would have been able to see if the email had been read and a reply sent.

If she had, and you did too then it does make you out to be a little unprofessional. As a client, it could feel pushy or it could look like you're all a bit all over the place. It really depends on the client.

If she replies to the client from her name@ business email then you wouldn't have known. It could still look bad to the client, but at least you can say that you had no way of knowing (although if the email was already opened, I was assume my colleague was dealing with it and would maybe check with them first).

To be honest I would have been annoyed you had done that too. It suggests you didn’t trust her to do her job properly. If you wanted to help her out you could have emailed her directly to let her know he had replied, there was no need for you to reply directly to the customer. I wouldn’t have complained, unless it was one example of a number of ways I’d felt undermined, but I can see why she was annoyed.

The fact that you know she's raised it with your boss and your boss has said nothong to you suggest that your boss thinks it's really neither here nor there who mailed the client- the point is the lead is there and can be followed up on. I dont think you have anything to worry about.

I'd keep an eye on her generally though.

@BobbieDraper well no obviously the colleague hadn't already replied or OP wouldn't have needed to, would they? Pretty clear that the colleague hadn't. Client wanted to speak urgently and 40 mins later had still had no call because nobody had let them know there was no phone number for them. I'd be more concerned by that looking unprofessional than being responded to by 2 different people on an account which is clearly designated to a group of people.

I would have messaged/spoken to your colleague to say “hi Jane just checking the mailbox and noticed that Mr/Mrs client didn’t leave a contact number. Just in case you were waiting to hear from them”

She may be pissed off that you highlighted to her but she is pissed anyway but this way the client isn’t affected

I wouldn’t have replied to an email thread that someone else was dealing with. I think maybe you so need procedures about how to handle the mass email inbox, tbh.

I agree, you should have emailed her, asking her if she was busy with something else and if so did she need you to respond.

Saying that, as a one off it really isn't a big issue, but it sounds like there is an element of competition between you so everything will be picked up.

I think it is time to agree a protocol or it will only get worse. Don't overstep in each others toes, it's horrible to work under these conditions.

You were wrong. You should have at very least emailed her first but 40 minutes is nothing.

Helpful replies. Thank you.

I know I said there was no protocol around this but she would be expected to communicate from this email address at this stage so I knew she wouldn't have replied from her own email address.

My question is mainly because it wouldn't occur to me, as a client, to be at all bothered that a second person on an office@ email address had contacted me to help in this way so I'm interested to know what others would feel from the client's perspective.

dontdisturbemenow is right that this seems to be about competition and it feels quite unpleasant.

I think my colleague is probably feeling quite insecure and is dealing with that by trying to make me look bad. It's a shame because there's no need and it will just make work stressful for both of us. I have nothing to gain by undermining her.

I'm not going to say anything at this stage but will suggest introducing some protocols is a suitable opportunity presents itself. I doubt this situation will occur again but, if it does, I'll just leave her to deal with it.

As a client I don't think I would have minded the response from another person as it would have all come from the one address (the central one).

In your position, had I known Jane was already dealing with this I would have messaged her directly and said Mr client hasnt left a contact number but needs you to get in touch asap.

Although if she has taken issue with you before even this could be seen by her as a way to say she's not up to scratch!

The whole point of central mailboxes is that the "team" respond as appropriate in a timely manner.
It seems obvious that you followed the right course of action as it wasn't at that point appropriate for it to move to personalised email addresses.
She sounds incompetent and concerned that her incompetence will be seen, as the first form of defence is attack, and it sound alike she's being doing a lot of attacking!

Your "colleague" is a fucking whiny baby cunt.

Give the bitch a wide berth and leave her to dig her own shit-pit. People like this are nothing but fucking oxygen thieves.

@FartingInTheFence

I think as the customers email went to the office email then anyone could respond, it's once the emails move to people's individual addresses that they alone deal with it. I would also expect your colleague to have mentioned to you directly that she was annoyed, running off to the boss seems immature to me.

@FartingInTheFence 😂

I feel reassured that my boss hasn't raised it. We have a good working relationship and both feel comfortable to challenge the other when it's justified. Neither takes it personally.

I was wondering about the client perspective in case we should review how we manage all of our shared email accounts. It sounds like that's not necessary.

I feel reassured that my boss hasn't raised it

Seems you boss also realises that your colleague is a juvenile moron whose moaning like a donkey isnt worth the hassle of dealing with!

I'm with Farting.

As a client I wouldn't give two shits about who's emailing me, as long as things are progressing.

I do think it depends on the industry , some of the services I have worked in it is quite a big thing not to have several people involved so yes it would have been unprofessional.

I don't think you were horrendously out of order but i do think I would have handled it differently and sent a text or an email to colleague. Again it really depends , in some roles you would have been seen as playing silly buggers and interfering , in others it would have been good that you had done it so it's really hard to comment.

Was there a reason you didnt contact colleague instead?

We have a similar type of shared inbox and given that you’d stated in the email she would call, its pretty clear you weren’t trying to take any thing off her.

Perhaps though, you need a categorisation system and a process now Maybe the coloured tabs or folders?

Was there a reason you didnt contact colleague instead?

Only that it was obvious that letting the client know the number was missing ASAP would be the fastest solution. It genuinely didn't occur to me that anyone would have a problem with it. It's normal practice for our organisation.

And it seems your boss agrees, since they haven't come to you about it. So all's well?

I would have been grateful if anything.
You have done the right thing. IMO.
Business comes first.
Clients mustn’t know if there are any misalignments amongst colleagues