Ignore customers and lose business, but for real stupidity try one-way email

Every opportunity to communicate with customers is an opportunity to build volumes and profit. Maximising the communication opportunity is therefore a business imperative.

Or is it?

Many companies that migrate to email communication, leave their business sense behind, along with their sense of basic courtesy. In the electronic age, a new rule has emerged for service-challenged companies:

To upset individual customers, simply ignore them; but to give offence to thousands, try email instead.

Email is not the best medium for customer communication. Most businesses know they should not send spam and should keep emails short. Some even appreciate that careless use of capitals and exclamation marks can irritate customers.

However, an even greater irritation often goes unrecognised — the ‘No-Reply’ email. A business that adopts this technique is telling customers ‘We don’t like you talking to us; your concerns are not a priority’. No one receives a No-Reply email from a friend. They only come from companies that enjoy your custom or solicit your custom.

The communication tells you what to do or provides information while preventing customer engagement. Email, a two-way communication medium, becomes a one-way channel. How stupid is that? However, there’s a rational (though unsatisfactory) explanation. The No-Reply protocol is frequently adopted because a business does not wish to be bombarded with responses and queries.

This is patently one-sided and unfair. A business is happy to bombard customers with information they may or may not want, but avoids any chance of a counter-bombardment.

Yet many people will respond once a business initiates a conversation. A courteous note in the body of the email would suffice; something to the effect that recipients need not reply or take any other action unless they want to.

By definition, No-Reply monologues cost a business the opportunity for further engagement with customers. A business also loses out on:

• valuable customer feedback
• random enquiries that might turn into sales leads
• insights that enable a business to tailor sales messages to specific customers
• opportunities to strengthen relationships

A No-Reply email will never be added to a user’s contact list, increasing the likelihood a business’s emails will be automatically rejected. Communication carrying a proper email address is more likely to be added to the ‘safe’ lists kept on internet service provider servers – provided there is interaction.

Spam recipients can hit the ‘unsubscribe’ button. No-Reply mail usually provides no such option, increasing the chance that some irritated customers may report the offending business as a spammer, affecting future email communication prospects.

So, why run the risk of your business’s emails will be perceived as rude and irritating? All customer communication should be courteous. Email is no exception.

Courtesy costs nothing. But discourtesy can cost you your business.