Why noreply email addresses are bad for business
Direct communication with your customers is crucial. Robert Rawlins argues that noreply@ addresses are a sign of bad user experience, as you don't allow your customers to converse with you
It’s 2012... There are no flying cars, no robot maids and no Judge Dredd… this is a future that would bring a sour taste of disappoint to the mouth of most science fiction writers. One exciting reality we do have though is open and engaging conversation with the companies whose products and services we spend our hard earned universal credits on ... don’t we?
Twitter, Facebook, blogs and forums have transformed the way that we have discussions with so many brands, making our opinions heard and seeking reparation for the wrongs we have been cast. Yet email, the social media from the time before ‘social media' began, often remains a brick wall, thanks to everybody’s most attentive customer service agent, Joe Noreply.
On a daily basis, newsletters, marketing emails, app notifications, billing receipts and welcome emails land in my inbox. Some are large brands setting a horrible trend, others are small businesses following a bad habit, but so many, probably through a lack of care and understanding, refuse to engage me in conversation.
They all have their part to say, pitch to push or announcement to make, but what about little old me? You know, the ‘valued’ customer? Sending emails to your customers from a noreply@ may as well read …
“Dear valued customer. Your opinion is not actually valued. Thanks.”
Not only do I feel undervalued – you’re wasting my time.
Nine times out of 10 when writing a reply I wont check the ‘to’ address, I just trot out my response and hit the send button. Moments later I’ll then receive a bounce notice, explaining that I sent my message to a mailbox that isn’t monitored.
How many people do you then think would take the time to find another way to contact you with their feedback? I wouldn’t.
Email needs to be more than just one-way communication – it needs to be conversation.
Man to man
Instead of noreply@, allow me to converse with the people behind your business.
If you’re sending me a quote for something, let me reply direct to the salesperson that sent it. If you’re sending me a delivery booking then let me reply to the logistics manager … the more personal you can make these emails the more looked after I will feel as a customer. If you can’t identify someone personally then have my reply land into a shared mailbox or ticket system.
So long as my voice reaches the right person and they listen, I’m happy.
Replies will range from good to bad, from useful to pointless, but two things will remain; you gain invaluable, honest, free feedback and the customer is satisfied by the ease of conversation that we’ve come to expect in today’s social media society.
Man to Machine
Robot maids? Perhaps not – but messages from applications notifying me of things such as blog comments or DMs are ever increasing.
And something that’s often overlooked is that when you send these notifications, like it or not, you’re extending your applications user experience into my mail client. It only seems natural that I should be able to use that client to interact with your application, doesn’t it?
From my phone, replying to a Twitter DM email is currently an arduous process of nearly seven gestures … SEVEN! ... this unfortunately led to the worst case of ‘combat thumb’ I’ve experienced since my victory at the 1997 regional school playground thumb wars championship – this obviously in an era before health and safety banned humans from having thumbs after some kid poked his own eye out.
If I get a notice about a DM or blog comment, I should be able to reply by email, and have my reply posted directly to the application.
I can appreciate a direct reply means I then don’t visit your site, but is that additional hit really worth sacrificing the simplicity of my experience?
So listen…
Sending emails from a noreply@ portrays a bad image. It harms delivery success. It loses an opportunity to gather valuable feedback. It leaves your customers feeling undervalued, and most importantly ... it gives me an achy thumb.
You can change this; open yourselves up to conversation, allow your customers to speak directly with the thing that makes your business so amazing – the people behind it.
Plenty of businesses pride themselves on talking to their customers – but how many can say that they really listen?
Open your ears and you will hear amazing things.
It’s 2012 … There are no excuses.
6 comments
Comment: 1
http://blog.postmarkapp.com/post/3726910416/no-no-reply
Not only is this bad UX, but it can actually affect deliverability too.
Some of our customers are now turning to our inbound email processing feature to get email replies directly into their apps: http://postmarkapp.com/inbound
Comment: 2
Really like the proactive approach of warning users who try to add a noreply@ sender signature, very nice.
Robert
Comment: 3
Otherwise, what would be the best UX when sending email newsletters to avoid such thing?
Thank you!
Comment: 4
There is a generally accepted set of rules for how auto-repsonders work, unfortunately a lot of mail server don't like to play nicely, and as you quite rightly point out, this can cause problems for people on the receiving end.
The long and short of it is that there is no full-proof fix.
The best approach is to use an effective SPAM filter - backed by some custom mail filters in your client to weed out the majority of automated traffic; pattern matching keywords in the subject line like 'out of office' or 'away from desk'.
This will not likely eliminate 100% - but should at least cut it down to a much more manageable level.
One other option is to find a decent helpdesk application to manage the customer support - many of these have these kinds of filters built in, taking the heavy lifting away from you.
Robert
Comment: 5
Approx 8 years ago I was tasked with project managing the implementation of an email marketing system that had all the bells and whistles but as all the others, they required an email box setup with noreply@.
The reason given was that their system would regularly 'read' it and process all the out of office, bounces, etcetera, after which it would also delete them.
I was disturbed by this for the same reasons you mention in this article; what if a prospect customer just hit reply?
So I suggested if they could ensure that any emails in that box with 'RE: ..." would be left alone or/and moved into a separate folder. They said yes, but due to some email servers at the other end not being configured correctly, they couldn't guarantee results.
I therefore took the decision to request they modify our implementation so that none of these emails get deleted. Then once per day we would check that inbox and filter real responses manually.
It was worthwhile, as many times there were good leads in there that became orders. When even just one order can make the difference to campaign ROI, it was worth it!
Comment: 6
I agree that there are a large number of marketing departments who take this approach - I did in fact have a part of the article aimed directly at them, but I edited it out before publishing as it made the article a little long.
As you've pointed out, using noreply is the easy option - however, if companies genuinely desire a persons business then they should be making that extra effort to engage them.
It's great to see that you've personally seen the positive effects of opening up that mailbox and receiving replies.