You know, those email responses you get back saying, "Hi, we got your email..."
Lately, they have fallen into three categories:
1. Corporate auto-responders
Inevitably, after emailing a company I get one of these. The ridiculous thing is that I always have that instant thought of, "Wow, that was a really fast response! What great customer service!"
And then I open the email and it goes something like this:
Thanks for taking the time to contact us. We might or might not get back to you and it might be within 24 hours, but I wouldn't hold your breath. Because, you know, we're super busy and you're really not that important to us.Hey you know what? Email is pretty slick, so when I sent you that email, I assumed you were going to get it. How about you just spell out that "we might or might not ever get back to you stuff" on the contact us page and save us both the next step. And then I'll just hope to hear from you someday. K?
2. Twitter
You find someone on Twitter you think is interesting. You read along a bit and then decide to click the "follow" button. And whattya know, you get a direct message back.
Those tend to go like this:
Hey thanks for following me. I probably won't follow you back, but I have put this DM in place so you feel like I actually spoke to you and in hopes that you still follow me all the same. But really, everyone who follows me gets this same message. I love to tweet about stuff, stuff and more stuff. Bye! (Of course, they say that in 140 characters, but that was too much work to do here.)3. And my newest annoyance, Blog Comment Auto-Responses
Similar to Twitter, you find a blog you like. Big blog, small blog, doesn't matter, I've seen this on blogs of all sizes.
You're reading and nodding along. Maybe you're laughing. Maybe you're getting mad at whatever they were mad about too. And so you click on the "comments" link and take the time to write them a note.
Maybe it's seconds later and maybe it's not until a day later (because they have timed it to make it seem like it might really be them responding), you get a note saying something like:
"Thanks for your comment. If you liked that, you should come back for more. I hope to see you again soon."
Really? Because I am guessing from that comment that you didn't really see me (or hear me or read me) at all.
Here is my point: People like to talk to other people. Whether in person or online. No one likes to feel like a number or someone who is just being dealt with or collected. So please, before you auto-respond (or have your auto-responder deal-ies do it for you), stop and think. My guess is that your auto-response is doing more harm than good.
