Should you reply straight away to people making enquiries?

Should you reply straight away to people making enquiries?

I'm making this in response to a sub-discussion my and Cristian were having in the thread Is the response time attributed to order completion time? In that thread we were discussing whether PM's are taken into consideration when calculating your response time. I was saying that when someone sends you a message about your service, enquiring about it as a prospective buyer, that you shouldn't reply straight away. But rather you should wait some time before replying.

I actually read an article about this on Forbes website or some freelancer tips site or something that was saying that you shouldn't always instantly reply to people. You should wait some time before you do.

The reason was that by waiting some time to answer/reply to that enquiry, you give the impression that you're busy and working on things which makes it look like you have work on which gives the impression that people are using you/your services.

Where as if you reply straight away, almost instantaneously, it shows that you aren't busy and have no work on and can give the impression that you have no buyers and work on. And that can make people wonder why you don't have any work on.

They could end up thinking;

• Why don't they have any work on?
  
• Are they not any good and being hired by anyone?
  
• Are they desperate for work?
  

Where as taking the time to reply they might think;

• That you was busy and didn't have time to instantly respond.
  
• You are busy because you have work to do for your clients.
  

Also taking the time to respond, because you was busy, you could explain that to the person enquiring and say that you apologize for the delay in responding but you was working on some clients orders for them which could be true and will give the impression that people are hiring you and your work is genuine and good. Although replying fast might also help as well as people do like efficiency. They like it when you take the time out to quickly respond to messages and that can work in your favor as well.

Or does it depend entirely on the question being asked?

Because sometimes some people ask daft questions and they are usually questions that have been asked before and from experience, the people that ask that specific question (no matter the answer given) never go no further anyway. Where as some questions people ask, you know they are genuine buyer questions and being fast in replying with the right answer could result in a sale.

But what is your view on this?

Do you agree that sometimes, taking a little time to respond can show that you are busy which can work in your favor. Or do you just reply to people making enquiries about one of your services straight away as fast as you can?

Strike fast while the iron is hot and give the impression you're not busy.

Or wait a while before replying because you are to make it look so?

What's your view and why?