Forum Discussion
What is the best process in Outlook for follow-up with a client?
I have used Outlook for years and I know it has several reminder/tasks/to do features. I'm wondering what the best way would be for me.
I have clients where I get an email and I need to follow up, but a longer time period. This could be anywhere from 6 months to 2 years away, depending on the client.
The easiest for me is to right click the email, select follow-up, and then select my date. However, I would prefer to then delete the email but my understanding is that when I delete the email, I will be removing the reminder.
Any suggestions on the fastest and easiest way to set these reminders? I would like for them to be in my tasks/to do rather than just a pop up on the screen reminder.
Thank you.
Hello mwhittington,
to manage long-term follow-ups with clients in Outlook, the Tasks feature can be highly effective for creating reminders without cluttering your inbox. Here's a streamlined process for doing this:
- Right-click the email and select Follow Up > Add Reminder.
- Choose your desired follow-up date and, if necessary, set a reminder time.
- Drag and drop the email into the Tasks area. This creates a task from the email.
- Delete the email from your inbox. The task with the reminder will now appear in your To-Do List.
This method ensures that you'll have a reminder set for the future, visible in your Tasks and To-Do List without needing to keep the original email in your inbox. Additionally, you can categorize and prioritize these tasks for better workflow management.
When you set a reminder on a task, it will pop up as an alert at the specified time, similar to a calendar event reminder. This guarantees that you won’t miss the follow-up, even after deleting the original email.
For more detailed instructions or alternative methods, check out the official Microsoft Support page on this topic:
Send an email message with a follow-up reminder - Microsoft SupportLeonPavesic Thank you very much
The part I'm not seeing is ". Drag and drop the email into the Tasks area". Maybe I don't have the correct view? My tasks don't show where my email is.
Thank you for your help.
