Apparatus, system, and method for email response time estimation based on a set of recipients

An apparatus to estimate a response time based on a set of recipients for an email message, the apparatus comprising:

• a recipient module configured to determine a set of email recipients identified by a user, the set of email recipients comprising intended recipients of a new email message from the user;
• a response time identification module configured to determine one or more response times for each recipient from the set of email recipients, each response time based on an elapsed time between a send time that a user sends an email message and a receive time that the user receives a response to the email message;
• a trend module configured to determine a response time trend for each recipient from the set of email recipients, each response time trend based on the one or more response times of one of the recipients from the set of email recipients;
• an estimate module configured to determine an estimated response time for the new email message based on the response time trends;
• and
• a display module configured to display a visual representation of the estimated response time to the user.

A computer program product comprising a computer readable medium having computer usable program code executable to perform operations to estimate a response time based on a set of recipients for an email message, the operations of the computer program product comprising:

• determining a set of email recipients identified by a user, the set of email recipients comprising intended recipients of a new email message from the user;
• determining a response time trend for each recipient from the set of email recipients, each determined response time trend comprising information relating to previous email response times for one recipient from the set of email recipients;
• determining an estimated response time for the new email message based on the response time trend for each recipient;
• and
• displaying a visual representation of the estimated response time to the user.

An apparatus to estimate a response time based on a set of recipients for an email message, the apparatus comprising:

• a recipient module configured to determine a set of email recipients identified by a user, the set of email recipients comprising intended recipients of a new email message from the user;
• a response time identification module configured to determine one or more response times for each recipient from the set of email recipients, each response time based on an elapsed time between a send time that a user sends an email message and a receive time that the user receives a response to the email message;
• a trend module configured to determine a response time trend for each recipient from the set of email recipients, each response time trend based on the one or more response times of one of the recipients from the set of email recipients;
• an estimate module configured to determine an estimated response time for the new email message based on the response time trends and to dynamically update the estimated response time in response to the user updating the set of email recipients;
• a display module configured to display a visual representation of the estimated response time to the user;
• a recipient suggest module configured to suggest a recipient from a plurality of recipients for the user to add to the set of email recipients based on a response time trend corresponding to the suggested recipient, such that an addition of the suggested recipient to the set of email recipients lowers the estimated response time;
• an optional response module configured to determine one or more optional response recipients identified by the user, the one or more optional response recipients comprising intended recipients of the new email message whose response time trends are factored out of the estimated response time for the new email message;
• and
• a desired response module configured to identify a designation from the user that represents a desired number of responses to the new email message, the estimated response time for the new email message comprising an estimated amount of time in which the user is likely to receive the desired number of responses to the new email message based on the response time trends.