Kevin Harrington // marketing // blog

Posts Tagged ‘email’

1. I am currently out at a job interview and will reply to you if I fail to get the position. Be prepared for my mood.

2. You are receiving this automatic notification because I am out of the office. If I was in, chances are you wouldn’t have received anything at all.

3. Sorry to have missed you, but I am at the doctor’s having my brain removed so I can be promoted to our management team.

4. I will be unable to delete all the unread, worthless emails you send me until I return from holiday on 18 April. Please be patient, and your mail will be deleted in the order it was received.

5. Thank you for your email. Your credit card has been charged £4.99 for the first 10 words and £0.99 for each additional word in your message.

6. The email server is unable to verify your server connection and is unable to deliver this message. Please restart your computer and try sending again. (The beauty of this is that when you return, you can see how many in-duh-viduals did this over and over.)

7. Thank you for your message, which has been added to a queuing system. You are currently in 352nd place, and can expect to receive a reply in approximately 19 weeks.

8. Hi, I’m thinking about what you’ve just sent me. Please wait by your PC for my response.

9. I’ve run away to join a different circus.

10. I will be out of the office for the next 2 weeks for medical reasons. When I return, please refer to me as ‘Loretta’ instead of ‘Scott’.

Please feel free to use the comment facility and tell me your favourite or to add your own ideas.

The 3 email challenge…I like this article, it suggests that most email exchanges last no more than 3 emails. I just went back through some emails and noticed the ones where I am waiting for number 2! Read the full article by clicking here.

I did chuckle…before I unsubscrided to the emails. I would rather have hoped that an email to me asking me to re-start subscriptions to the magazine Data Strategy would have been addressed to me. Wrong, it was addressed to Ms Ramsey.

I didn’t notice that error at first. Actually I was marvelling at the bad email. Not a single mention of any benefit to me if I did subscribe. Here it is for you to enjoy.

starts

Re-start your free subscription

Dear Ms Ramsey,

Reference Number: 3920515

Over a year ago, you registered for free copies of Data Strategy. At the time, we might not have explained that, to continue receiving complimentary copies of the magazine, you need to re-register every year.

Please follow this link to re-start your free copies >>

If you are NOT the person named above, please use the following link instead:

New reader application >>

Alternatively, you can print out a free application form at:http://applynow.centaur.co.uk/pubpdf/ds/Browse.view Please complete this and fax it back to 020 7970 4099.

I look forward to sending you your copies for another year.

Yours Sincerely,

Ed Tillotson Publisher

P.S. Do you have any colleagues whom you think would benefit from receiving their own complimentary copies? If so, forward them this link: http://www.data-strategy.co.uk/apply

ends

We make all sorts of assumptions about communication media for different age groups. Recent examples that help me keep a broad focus:

1. Charlie, my 6 year old son, not only now uses Outlook for his personal email account he is also sending me messsages with images embedded. The one on the left arrived the other day.

2. My mother, who has enjoyed free bus travel for some while now (to people outside of the UK: that means she is over 65), sends me texts littered with text speak. You know the type of thing, cu l8r and similar abbreviations.

3. I actually found someone in their late teens that doesn’t use Facebook/Twitter/MySpace. I am sure he is not alone.

The lesson to me was useful: don’t make assumptions. I’m sure I’ll need reminding of this again very soon!

Email

New Media Age, 31 May 2007, tells us that, “British companies are losing money because they ignore emails from their customers.

Egain’s State of Customer Service study found that 38% of ‘major UK companies’ don’t bother to respond to emails despite the fact that their numbers are increasing.”

Retailers had the best track record, responding to 70% of emails, but telecoms had the worst – 58% of emails were simply ignored.

Well, no suprises there then!