I use email a lot. I guess everyone does these days!
One of the things that drives me mad is auto-responders. While they can be used very effectively they’re usually not.
A good use of an autoresponder would be a specific email address that you send a blank mail to in order to get back information.
Unfortunately most people who setup autoresponders don’t seem to think it through.
So far today I’ve received several autoresponders and none of them have been anyway useful.
Do I really want to know that someone is going to get in touch with me? I’d prefer if they actually answered my query!
We use autoresponders on our support desk, but that’s a ticketing system. It’s expected!
If we were to do it with our sales email address people would get really annoyed and I’d be one of them!
So if you’re going to use an autoresponder stop for a minute and think.
Do you really need to use it?
Who is likely to send mail to that address?
Is the response you’re sending of any use to them?
Is there a better way of handling it?
And please don’t get me started on “out of office” replies!!!
Thank you for your observation, unfortunately I’m not available to reply in person but will do so upon my return. 🙂
Yes, they are a pain. Totally agree.
Hello Michele,
Your blog post has been read and will be commented upon shortly.
Thank you for posting on your blog.
Yours sincerely,
Your readers.
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I love people that set up auto-responders for email adresses that they use to subscribe to mailing-lists…