No reply, a great way to p!&& off your customers

Email marketing offers extraordinary ROI because it is personal, direct, and interactive, allowing communication that is timely, relevant and two-way.  And you can use automated email tools to filter, manage and respond to emails that are sent to your service teams (even if that team’s just you).

So why do you use noreply to clearly state that we may not speak with you in the most intuitive way there is – the ‘Reply’ button in an email client.  Ironically most marketers have paid money to experts to optimise their online user interfaces and then ignore the most straightforward UI in email.

It’s hard to interpret that noreply says much other than ‘rack off – we are not interested in you’.  Whether they want to buy something from you, compliment you, comment, unsubscribe, or enquire, you are saying ‘no, you can’t do it this way’.  In a bid to start a conversation with the marketers who use this; here is a quick list of some of the Companies in the inbox with noreply as the reply email address.  If you are on this list please contribute – why?  If you aren’t on the list how do you feel when you see noreply? Let’s discuss.

1st Domains
Air New Zealand
Air Pacific
BookaBach
CXC
Four Square
Gareth Morgan Kiwisaver
Gawker
Genesis Energy
GrabaSeat
Grabone NZ
Hubspot
IRD
Jetstar (Qantas)
Kiwibank
MapMyRun
NZ Post
NZ Rugby
Paymate
Persil
Plaxo
Quiksilver
Rabo Bank – Rabodirect
Salesforce.com
Skype
Stardome
Techday NZ
Telstra Clear
VentureStreet
Virgin Velocity Rewards
Webex
Wildpoppies

A quick check for others who feel this way shows that there are a lot.  Here are what some others are saying:

Why would you use a no reply email address (www.socialemailmarketing.eu)

Avoid no-reply email addresses in email  (www.lyris.com)

The dreaded no-reply email  (emailmarketing101.blogspot.com) (Ed: I like these two points – you are not that big, and even if you are big, don’t be lazy)

FOOTNOTE: Here’s the subsequent post, inspired by comments below which answers the very good question: How DO you manage your replies then?


Comments? Replies?  Need a robust, experienced, trusted email marketing team on your side to help you get this stuff right, no matter where you are in the world?  ;)




Posted by roanne parker | January 23, 2011
Bad Email - what not to do, and how to do it,Banking Email Marketing Examples,Email Best Practice and Deliverability,Email Newsletters,GetSMART,Hall of Shame/Fame,Welcomes and Email Automation          , , , ,          Comments (9)
  • Paul

    I hate seeing noreply on emails. To me it shows the company is only interested in connecting via email because it’s cheap to do, not because it’s easy or useful for their customers. It’s the difference between being talked at, and being talked to – which is kind of important if you want to build engagement with your brand.

  • http://www.nzpost.co.nz Rob Holmes

    Picked up this post via your tweet. I’d like to look into this – you make some good points. Can you forward me the @nzpost no-reply email – thanks! ^R

  • http://Smartmailpro.com roanne parker

    Thanks Rob, done.

  • http://www.agatha.co.nz Mitchell

    At AGATHA Paris fashion jewellery we send out emails out from freefreetoreply@agatha.co.nz :)

  • http://Smartmailpro.com roanne parker

    Love it Mitchell, I have never heard of that – I’d love to see an example so that I can add it to the post if you like.

  • Gretchen Scheiman

    Roanne, good points. Most larger companies will use their customer service centers to handle replies. What do you suggest for mid-size companies who don’t have that support?

  • http://Smartmailpro.com roanne parker

    Thanks Gretchen, what a great point!

    This is too long a response so I will turn this into our next post. Love to hear your ideas and learnings too.

  • http://Genesis Helen

    Really annoying is that they don’t use their name in the subject line on some emails so you have to scroll through hundreds of emails reading them all to find the information you need.

  • http://twitter.com/MrsKateLincoln Kate Lincoln

    This is a topic I have discussed many times with various people around the business who have suggested we use a no-reply for eDMs. Their reasoning being that customer inquiries should come through the “appropriate channels”, being our 0800 number or contact form on the website.

    My response is always the same. If we are communicating to our customers using the channel then it is an appropriate channel for them to communicate with us.