Is it rude to send a late night email to a business?

[YellowPolkaDotBikini1980]

Just to clarify I don't mean WhatsApp or text or anything. An actual email.

I was up at 2 am, I remembered something and sent an email. Something along the lines of 'just to confirm the Birthday Cake we ordered has chocolate frosting but is a vanilla flavour cake'.

I just wanted to be clear because in the past, with a different bakery, we had verbally said 'chocolate frosting, vanilla cake' but ended up getting just a chocolate cake with chocolate frosting.

When picking up the cake, my sister was told 'and by the way, I don't appreciate getting emails at all hours of the night.'

Surely you turn off email notifications for you phone if you don't want to be disturbed. I don't think the Nigerian Princes and the 'Manhood extenders' are waiting for business hours to spam people's inboxes.

AIBU to send emails late at night?

That’s a her problem!! I woke two jobs, most personal emails are sent at 2am. D send another one apologising and taking my business elsewhere.

you're right, this is the mesg from you I was replying to. Telling the op it's bonkers to extrapolate anything- she wasn't extrapolating... she was talking about one particular small business.

You also said, "no big deal", she didn't say it was. She just wanted to know what others thought about it.

I do this too. Possibly they have an alert for customer emails going on so they always ping.

Well if they choose not to use that functionality that's on them really. There are lots of alternatives if they have elderly parents. Also they must be getting constantly disturbed by emails from random sources

Of course we all know that but thats not what I was replying to, I was wondering if there is some kind of accepted approach that I might be unaware of.

Its not a conversation I've had in RL and on here opinion is always split

Wtf who gets annoyed by emails in this way??? I’m with you OP it’s not rude and it’s why emails are so great you can send at all times of the day. It’s not like you tried to phone them!

I run my own business and receive emails at all times however I don't look at them until I want to

That's the joy of email

If she doesn't want to get notifications at night she should turn it off.

I am a nightshifter and insomniac so often do my best thinking at 2am. I often send emails but I always schedule send for 8am the next workday morning. I think non urgent business communications should be within office hours and I would hate for someone to feel they had to reply at the odd hours I keep.

It stems from my last job where there was a fb group and management worked 24h and would put stuff on the group all day and all night about all the stuff everyone was doing wrong and it was so hard to shut off at all because even if I said I wasn't going to deal with it until Monday it would sit in my head all the time.

YANBU. She should turn off notifications. The beauty and whole point of email is that you can send it any time, it's not like you called her, and the fact that you sent it certainly doesn't mean you expected a response. That should be obvious.

Even if it did annoy her, it is very rude and unprofessional of her to make a comment like that to a customer when delivering the goods they've paid for.

I certainly wouldn't be buying from her again if that's how she treats her customers.

Not rude at all. I work at a multinational, so I receive mails round the clock, but I don’t get them pushed to my phone, and I read them during my own working hours. I think this company just lost a customer.

I schedule emails that I send at funny hours. Although it does give people the idea I'm awake at 8am to ring.

Oh dear, even if she was annoyed by the email she was out of order for telling you. I would also go elsewhere next time if possible or just tell her (maybe on an email)

I’ve had this before, a small business which complained that I contacted them “outside of business hours”. Well sorry but 10pm is the time I have available to do things like order birthday presents as I have work and kids to juggle! I had been clear that I didn’t expect a response at that time. I withdrew my potential order from that person.

😂

It’s obviously someone with a very small business who receives work messages on her personal phone. Bad mistake! It’s quite normal to send emails . If this person has to leave her phone on overnight she needs to separate the work emails.

I am a "business", I have a separate email address and regularly get overnight emails as lots of the people I deal with are in North America or New Zealand/Australia.

I leave my phone downstairs when I go to bed. Or when I am away in a hotel or whatever, have it set to silent. Obviously.

No not rude at all, I run a business and we often get emails all through the night, as many of our clients are overseas. I don't get notifications, so not disturbed until I log on for work

Personally I never have email notifications turned on. I check work emails regularly during working hours and none of my personal emails are urgent - if they were the person would have called or sent a WhatsApp. Also 90% of what comes into my personal inbox is not even stuff I need to open. Every time I buy something online it generates about 10 emails telling me that the parcel is on its way, asking me to review the item, asking me to review the delivery company etc. Then there are all the 'your bank statement is ready to view' etc. Would drive me nuts having all that pinging away at me.

I'm neuro diverse too. I think a good rule of thumb to follow is that people who use email for business a lot understand email etiquette and those who don't don't. So you adjust.
I work with primary school teachers. They get themselves very stressed about emails from parents and not being able to answer instantly. They work in a very verbal environment where things (important, vital stuff) are requested and passed on by word of mouth. And they remember it all!! So they try to handle emails the same way and it doesn't work.
In future write the email but time delay it til 9am.
And try to remember to add a fluffy, irrelevant NT statement on each one to not look brusque - it helps oil the wheels.
Hi Amanda
I'm so glad you could make the cake!...
Or
Hi Amanda
I can't wait to see DDs face when she sees the cake!!...

I run a small business, I turn off email notifications off when I go to bed. However I leave WhatsApp on, and wasn’t impressed when someone WhatsApp’d me at 1.30 am!

I've just looked, overnight I've had an email from my bank, Build a bear, and an online retailer who sends an email everyday at around 5.

She is being ridiculous, my Do Not Disturb goes on at 10 and ends when my alarm goes off or 8 am if no alarm. I have email notifications but no sound alert.

She needs to manage her phone better.

Gosh, she’s going to lose a potential future customer. How silly.

My response would have been “and I don’t appreciate that comment so won’t be ordering from you again”.

As you said what’s app or a text would have semi warranted a comment but not an email. Clearly they don’t care about customer service or want repeat business.

I think it depends on the business personally. If it's a sole trader - like a carpenter or bathroom fitter who clearly uses their own phone for business - I wouldn't be contacting them at those hours. Whilst it is their prerogative to set boundaries, turn off notifications etc outside of their working hours, I can also understand that that is more difficult for people who are self-employed. I would usually just set a reminder on my phone to message them at 8am.

I send emails, texts AND WhatsApps at all hours of the day and night. A lot of our business communication happens through instant messaging apps (such as WhatsApp) and it’s not uncommon to be doing your admin tasks at midnight, or to text from a different time zone.

It is 2024, and people have the option to set their phone so that it doesn’t make noise during the hours they would like to rest.

You can either turn WiFi off (thus still enabling calls to come through), or personalise your settings so that only specific contacts / apps can get through. I have it set so that all calls ring through even during Do Not Disturb hours, and messages from specific contacts that I know would only text if there was an emergency.