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?

No. I used to send them at 4am on a Sunday if I couldn’t sleep and decided to get ahead with work for Monday. I’d get the odd “you’re sad working at that time on a Sunday” but no one complained about it

I work strange hours and on the bottom of my email, I have a comment that says I work flexible hours and if this email lands outside your normal working hours, please feel free to reply when you are next working!

Its not your fault they don't mute their emails outside their working hours!

I work in a hotel & we get emails around the clock due to nature of the business & international guests etc.

We reply during our office hours like normal.

The business owner in this case needs manage their work/life balance better. 24 hr emails coming in will never allow them to switch off from work.

What was the cake like? I’d be leaving a review about the rude manner of who runs the business

They will only read it when they choose to in their business hours I assume, so no problem at all.

Nah that cake business was very rude. I wouldn't be ordering from her again.

If she doesn't want to be notified at night then she should mute her notifications or put her phone on silent. What a strange woman.

It's ludicrous for someone to complain about getting an email at the wrong time, and their problem for not working out how to turn off notifications out of hours, which is extremely easy. Not your fault at all OP. Email is an asynchronous mode of communication.

I've got 3 kids under 3 so am in bed early ready for being woken often at 530. So I often wake to messages, emails from people who are awake beyond 9pm and then reply before 6 so that I don't forget or send things at that time while we have a few quiet moments. I neither get annoyed with people messaging me "late at night" or expect anyone else to be awake before 6am and replying. Perhaps the baker has had people complain before about not being prompt at responding but as you're the customer and weren't harassing them, just ignore the reaction

I don't think it's rude. They turn their phone off.

No. They can read it when they are at work.

I think it's fine. I often send emails late at night, obviously I don't expect a response until the business is open.
If people don't want to be contacted by email after a certain time surely they turn their notifications off?
Wouldn't be using that bakery again.

I don’t think this is rude, nor is sending emails on the weekends. All the business has to do is not respond until during their working hours, I don’t understand why they get so salty about it.

Personally, on the weekend is where I get things done and have time to get in touch with businesses for quotes etc for various things.. I never expect an email back until during their working hours.

No, you’d only be unreasonable to expect them to reply outside of their business opening/working hours which I should expect them to advise you when that is so you do t try to phone to discuss something important only to find they are closed. As in if you send emails through the night asking why they haven’t replied or get annoyed they didn’t reply til the next working day.

Emails can be sent whenever and read whenever. If people want to leave an email alert on when they are t working and get disturbed that’s on them.

I’m a baker for a living. This would not annoy me in the slightest.

An email is a godsend - write it down at your convenience and don’t let the bloody Facebook Messenger ping up at knobhead o’clock when you’ve had a drunken thought about buying a birthday cake you have no intention of actually buying…

The baker in question just needs to turn her bong bongs off and answer when suits. Works for me.

On the converse, if I get an out of hours messenger when I might have left the alerts on by accident, I do like to send them one back when I wake up and hope they enjoy a ping at 4am too 👍

Bizarre. The first thing I do when I login to my work computer in the morning is go through all the emails that have come in overnight. (and delete the vast majority of them).

Emails aren't a problem at all for me, nor are messages through Facebook or whatever.

Out of hours texts swiftly followed up by '???' if you don't reply quickly enough drain my brain.

I run a small business and get emails at all hours. I've even had phone calls late into the evening which does annoy me. Not bothered by the emails and messages though. Sometimes I reply, depends what time it is. What does bother me is those who expect a reply immediately, as I have had a message through on a Friday night and then a follow up 12 hours later with "did you get my message?" Or similar on several occasions.

not at all. they'll only have people on duty to answer at certain times, so it won't get read until someone is on duty. you can send it any time.

I keep my mobile on overnight but have selected people who can get through night mode. Sounds like the business owner needs to learn how to use her device…

Agree that it's fine to email at 2am. But I don't get the logic that them being weird about it means you shouldn't buy from them again. It seems like a desire to punish them.

They weren't 'weird' they were rude and unprofessional about it.

Because the owner was clearly annoyed and said something on pick up. I find that rude and not good customer service to have a go at the customer for sending an email not during business hours

Really rude and unprofessional.
Of course you can send an email any time.
I wouldn't expect a reply outside office hours.

I wouldn't appreciate being spoken to like that.
I wouldn't use her again, nor would I recommend and I would tell your friend the above.

People often send emails like that, out of hours, when they have busy lives, but absolutely not expect action out of business hours.

Because telling a customer off for when they sent you an email while handing over the item they've paid you for is really shite customer service. Customers vote with their wallets.

If you don't want to be disturbed by an e-mail at 2 a.m. don't check your e-mail at 2 a.m.