[I’m trying something slightly different here. Some of you may have hear me musing about snippets on Twitter last week, but basically, “snippets” are ideas that are longer than tweets but shorter than my normal posts. We’ll see how it goes.]
There are two conversations that I’d like to join. The first post is Naomi’s You Are Not A Bad Person And You’re Not Doing It Wrong – a post that contains a lot of ideas and frustrations that we’ve been talking about for a month or so now. I’d like to draw out one particular point from the post:
Thanks to a pretty aggressive spam filter, less than 1% of those emails are junk. If outsourcing is impersonal and autoresponders are offensive and ignoring them is career suicide, exactly what am I supposed to do with those emails?
Though we share the same challenges, the intensity of hers is much higher. But here’s the deal: I personally hate email autoresponders. I hate getting them, and for that reason, I don’t use them. (That’s not quite true – hold that thought.)
There comes a point, though, where I can’t answer all of the email that I get. Thanks to my internalization of Email Triage, I can normally respond within three days, but the more I do the things that are helping grow this blog, the more that three days stretches to four and five days. If I want to stay on top of it, I’ve got to do that in lieu of writing.
I’ve already talked about not being able to reply to blog comments, so you can imagine what it feels like for me not to be able to be a part of the conversations that people are starting with me. Right now, instead of telling people that I can’t or won’t reply, I’m saying nothing – which isn’t cool. But it’s also not cool to personally respond to everyone saying that I may not get back to them, and I don’t want to have an autoresponder tell them that either.
Sorry, I probably won’t get back to you. And instead of me having to personally tell you this, I’ve invoked a computer script to tell you it because I don’t have the time and heart to do it myself.
Have a great day!
Ugh.
Who Needs To Personally Say Thank You When Plugins Can Do It For You?
Then I was reading Ari‘s guest post on Remarkablogger about the One Blog Comment Plugin You Should Be Without and I was struck by the idea that having a plugin send people to a page that “Thanks” them falls under this same category. Is it really a thank you? Doesn’t a genuine thank you require a person behind it?
This plugin is much like Comment Relish, which sends an email to first time commenters thanking them for commenting. I have no doubt that Comment Relish is incredibly effective, but, given that I help people deal with email overwhelm, I’m not a big fan of sending people something that essentially gives them another thing that they have to process.
In theory, I’m a bigger fan of Comment Redirect (the plugin discussed in Ari’s post) because it doesn’t add to the heap, but the question still stands: is it really a thank you?
Auto-follow DMs vs. Aweber Lists
Consider another example that Twitizens love to rail against: the dreaded auto-follow DM. Whether or not most people agree, I’m not a fan of those, either; if you’d like to thank me for following you, having a script send an email to me is not the way to do it. (See email issues above.)
Yet, at some level, I’ve invoked technology to send welcomes and thank yous, too. If you join my newsletter, you’ll get emails from “me” saying welcome and thank you. Why is it that I hate invoking an autoresponder in one context but not another? Sending a commenter to a “thank you” page is functionally no different than sending a message that says “thanks for subscribing to the newsletter,” so what gives?
I’m honestly not sure on that one. I have a feeling I’ll be chewing on it for several weeks, but in the meantime, commenters get the same treatment as those emails I won’t respond to – silence. Which is the same treatment that new Twitter followers often get.
Whether We’re Offline or Online, We’re Still Dancing
I think what’s at play is that we’re trying to assess online interactions in the same way that we assess offline interactions, but we can’t. If someone walked up to you and started talking to you, you could ignore them, but it’d be much worse than saying I’m sorry – I can’t talk right now. Each of us has a tug to respond to other people because we’ve been hardwired and socialized that way, but our wiring and socialization isn’t keeping up with the reality of online interactions.
If it were as simple as saying “Do whatever feels comfortable to you,” it’d be one thing, but it’s not. Though the context of the interactions are different, they’re still social interactions. As in any other social interaction, there are three considerations: what I want and how I behave, what you want and how you behave, and what the standard social norms are that govern our interactions.
It’s that least piece of the dance that I’m most concerned about. Social norms stay in place because individual actors in the group continue to follow the script. We’re in a realm where we’re defining the social rules faster than we can process them, and while we each have to draw our line somewhere, we’re not drawing it in the vacuum.
The reason a real response and a real thank you works is because the recipient of the communication feels seen and heard. You took the time to interact with them. Lines of code can’t replace that any more than holding a doll can replace the warmth of a human embrace. But is holding a doll better than nothing at all?
Right now, I don’t know whether an automated response is better than no response at all. So I’ll turn it over to you: which do you prefer? After all, you’re part of the dance, too.
(So much for a snippet. I had a feeling that would happen.)
I don’t like automated responses. Whenever I get them through email, 99% of the time, I delete them. I feel as though I am getting a response, not from the blogger, but from no one. No one is really saying thank you to me; only a script is. Would I like it if I was out in the street and a script from so and so thanked me? Not really… and I apply it to my digital life as well.
To auto respond or not! I say auto respond. I use them and set up my clients to use them, but I don’t recommend pretending it’s you or sharing links to go here and learn more about me. Be realistic and honest is my approach! “Thank them and let them know you’ll look forward to connecting live.” is my motto.
My auto responder on Twitter actually says:
“Thanks for the follow. Yes, this is a automated message, in case you were curious! I look forward to connecting w/you live. See you online.”
I usually get a response on this, like “thanks for the honesty”, “love your approach”, something along those lines, but I don’t get griped out by anyone, or loose followers. As least not that I know of, but then again, I don’t use apps to track this.
Thanks for asking and your opinion!
…from so-and-so (*mistake). This means a person I don’t know so well. Sorry if that was unclear.
I don’t really have an issue with some autoresponders that let me know what’s going on. Vacation autoresponders, or just “I check email twice a week, so if you need to get me in a hurry, use the follow channel x”
I think it also makes it an interesting challenge that if you are going to grow your marketing and reach, then it might also be helpful to grow your business/revenue model at the same time.
Chris Guilleabeau deals with things by just not dealing with some things. ANd he’s not running the same kind of business we are.
Because we deliver services to clients, it’s important for us to connect with each person who might reach out to us. And so one of our focuses is building a revenue model that supports having infrastructure/help to care for those who reach out.
It also means that I don’t respond personally to everyone. But, hopefully, someone from our team does, and if my attention is needed I’m made aware. And I still answer a good proportion of email myself. And I think that will be changing as we move forward.
The truth is we can’t scale relationships- no matter how successful anyone is, we each only have 24 hours in a day, and a certain number of relationships we can truly cherish in our heart.
My choice, our choice, as a business, was to brand the business as an organization and to bring more people in to care for the folks who want what we’re offering.
If you are choosing the solopreneur route, then sooner or later you’ll probably just have to face the fact that not everyone will get personal attention.
And autoresponders, if used with heart and care, need not be the work of the Devil.
Thanks for the persective, Mark!
I really like the last line, too – though I cast a negative view of the use of autoresponders, it’s really not that they’re being used; it’s how and why they’re being used.
I don’t mind getting an automated thank you when I subscribe to a newsletter because that’s what I’m expecting from a newsletter – automated e-mails.
I would find autoresponders annoying with personal e-mails though. Or automated “personal” DMs on twitter – ugh.
That being said, silence would probably be worse than a stock message saying “Hey, I’m too busy to answer each e-mail individually so I probably won’t answers yours” or somesuch.
By the way, have you looked into gmail’s canned responses?(or a similar concept.) If a lot of the e-mails you get fit into the same categories, that might help you send in-depth responses to people (that you would have written individually if you really had the time).
Thanks for the feedback, Vlad – and I actually do have some canned responses through Gmail. It helps, especially for those emails I get from people requesting reviews, ad space, and other such things for which I have a stock answer.
I’m not opposed to all auto responses, such as the Aweber messages when I subscribe to a blog. But I really hate the autoresponder DM’s on twitter. They are the same as spam to me.
If I send someone an e-mail, I guess I would prefer and automatic response saying that they just can’t answer that many emails.
It is confusing isn’t it?
I think ones that acknowledge what they’re doing “you automatically subscribed; we’re automatically acknowledged it. No social interaction has taken place” or ones that give you useful information like, “I’m on vacation and won’t respond for 2 weeks” or “I get 1000 emails a day and can’t reply, and I’m sorry.”
Those ones are honest; I may not like them as well as an actual response, but I can understand and agree with the reasons for them.
The “Thanks for the follow!” twitter DMs are dishonest; they’re pretending to be social interaction, but are in reality a brush-off. They’re lying.
I think that’s the difference in why one is OK and one is offensive.
I definitely hate autoresponding DMs on Twitter; I’ve ranted about that before.
I have found it to be personally useful when I email a particularly busy person and I get back an autoresponder that explains their usual method for getting back to people.
However, I’ve also gotten the kind of email autoresponders that told me about a vacation that was at least a week gone; and the type that is always on, no matter what (UGH!). Those are the ones that annoy me and make me not want to talk to that person anymore, at least not through email.
I guess the question that I have been asking myself as I personally am trying to figure out how to respond to all the different things that arrive in my inbox is this: who am I trying to keep away? Because honestly, some kinds of people feel bad when faced with any kind of autoresponse at all, and maybe those are part of my Right People.
(As you can see, I’ve not quite worked this out for myself, ha.)
Good luck with that one, Rachel.
My tentative take has been this: if you can’t understand it might take me a few days to get back to you, we’re probably going to have a challenging relationship. Especially for people I don’t know.
So, if I had to choose who I wanted to “keep away,” it’s the people who expect an immediate response. For everybody else…well, let’s talk. ;p
Yeah, good point about people who expect immediate responses = people with whom I might have a challenging relationship. More food for thought. 🙂
I’m mixed on this one. On the one hand, it is good to get a response, but on the other, an automated response is, well, automated, and how genuine is that? But, then again, do you have time to hand write a response for everyone? Realistically, no, but probably the more you do the better.
I always felt very annoyed by getting Dean’s List letters with a printed signature…who the hell cares? It’s a cool award, but obviously some secretary just printed off a form letter and mailed that…the Dean doesn’t even know who any of the people on his list are! Interesting article, but I think that the more genuineness that is communicated, the better.
Charlie:
Thanks for this post. Enjoyed reading it.
Truth be told, we don’t live in an ideal world. There are only 24 hours in a day, and we all are busy with our work-lives.
Very few people can actually take the time to respond personally to every message.
Yes, it can be frustrating to get a message from a machine/robot–instead of the real deal–but we can’t be in two or three places at once, so try not to take it personally. And yet, I know some people do take it personally and get mad over impersonal messages.
Unless we find a novel solution, that’s just the way it’s gonna be, folks. I have been surprised that some people like Ali Hale, Bob Bly and a few others respond personally to each and every message I send them, but I don’t expect them to.
They are busy people who have too much on their plates and need to move forward. They may not have all the time in the world to respond personally to messages and that’s fine. Let’s be mature about it.
So, let us not be too hasty in judging others, and give people a break. Have empathy, please, and consider the situation from the “”other” point of view before snapping to judgment. Life is complicated. Cheerio.
I’ve not quite reached the Charlie/Naomi levels of email overwhelm yet, I’m sure my impressiveness will diminish given time … 😉
I’m probably even lower down the ladder there than you, Ali 🙂
Right now I get maybe 1-3 reader e-mails a week… and I cherish every single one and worry about making a good impression when answering 😛
I liked Naomi’s post. If you need 1000 fans to succeed, but you can only handle 150 friends, then yeah, most of your fans are going to have to put up with never hearing from you.
I think automated ‘thank you’ messages and such are like the signs at the edges of supermarket carparks: “thank you for shopping at S-mart”. Of course it’s not a real thank you, it’s just a sign. It doesn’t bother me when S-mart does it, but when that cute little cafe down the road does it, that kind of sucks.
So, if I know you have a zillion fans/clients/readers/whatever, then I guess getting an automated message saying “thanks” is better than nothing. But if I think of you as this really cool person I almost sort of e-know because I comment on your blog all the time, and then I get an auto message, that sucks. Problem is, I have no way of knowing what your inbox really looks like, so my reaction is probably completely unreasonable a lot of the time.
Interesting stuff.
As for auto-DMs to new followers: oh, please don’t! If you have more than 50 followers, I KNOW you don’t care if you have an extra one or not. I don’t expect you to care. I’m just tuning in to your channel, not starting a conversation. If I want you to talk to me, I’ll @reply. I guess a lot of people feel differently though.
I’m fine with an auto-response for information which is *useful*. That includes stuff like:
– You are on vacation for two weeks and won’t be getting back to me before then
– My subscription to your newsletter was successful and you’re telling me a bit about what to expect
I don’t expect a “thank you” for commenting or following, and I don’t like automated ones. I don’t use them myself, but I’ll occasionally send out a personal email to say “thanks” if someone’s comment etc had a real impact (sadly, now I’m getting more email, I do this less and less often).
The newsletter case is subtly different (like you mention in the post) because when I sign up for your newsletter, I am agreeing and expecting to get non-personal emails from you. An auto response is fine, especially as it lets me know the sign-up was successful.
When I email you personally, I wouldn’t be offended by an auto response, but I’d probably feel a little bit rejected!
I’m fine with emailing people with a holding reply, eg. “I’ll need some time to think about that, I’ll get back to you in a few days.” This may be a hang-over from my days in tech support (where we had to at least acknowledge all emails within 24 hours and all forum posts within 1 hour).
Great points, Ali!
The newsletter thing is dead-on and why I don’t have a problem there. Subscribers have signed up for a process that they know will mostly be automated and broadcast in nature.
I’m still less sure about the plugins because it’s not clear that people have asked for follow-up conversations and such.
I often use the “Hey, I’ve got this” reply when I know it’ll take longer than my 2-3 window. There’s a dark side to doing that, though – but that’s a post there. (Stay tuned! ;p)
Hi Charlie,
I’ve thought a lot about this, as you know. AwayFind’s original product strongly advocated autoresponders (now it’s much more about filters). I think that they represent a technology, and like all other technologies, it’s a matter of its application rather than the technology itself.
I’ve never had a negative response to the email auto responders I use, and I’ve used it for more than 2 years. I think that’s because my responses are tactful and polite. I’ve had the added benefit of seeing what kinds of auto responders our users have adopted, and how people use them.
We do a few things to make autoresponders more pleasant:
* We recommend a default that no longer raises a red flag when people receive them. This took some work
* We (by default) set autoresponders to go out once every 180 days as opposed to once every 3 days–that’s a big difference : ). Every 1-4 days is just tedious.
* We provide an opt-out, that we might actually remove since no one seems to be clicking on it when we only email every 180 days
Now obviously most out of office messages can’t do what we can with AwayFind (and no this isn’t a pitch–like most everyone here, I’ve long subscribed to PF!), but the point is that people don’t usually get guidance on how to write or how to implement an auto responder.
Communication is a matter of mutual respect and understanding. When you make an autoresponder a way to allow someone to both understand your situation and how to elevate important issues with a minimal barrier, that can be received well.
So, as with all communications approach, be tactful and it can work well.
However, auto-replies to DM’s are slightly different–they should only be employed if they provide useful, relevant, actionable information. Email auto responders (hopefully) set an expectation and provide an alternate way of being reached. Automated DM’s are often selling something or just saying “thank you,” which has little practical value for the recipient.
Hope to see you in a couple weeks at SXSW!
Jared
It’ll be great to catch up with you at SxSW, Jared! Thanks for the thoughtful comment.
There’s a thread here between you and Mark that I wanted to highlight.
Your emphasis on autoresponders is that they can be received well when they are tactful and polite. His emphasis is that they be used with heart and care.
And, honestly, it was the autoresponder thing that kept me away from AwayFind. A few of my friends were using it and I noticed how I felt when I got the autoresponder, and I didn’t want to do the same thing to other people. At the time, I also wasn’t getting that much email, anyway, so it was overkill.
But, I’m here now, and I’ll definitely have to give it another look. Thanks for letting us know about the changes; I knew you weren’t pitching, but even if you were, you’ve got a solution for some pain we’re in. That’s good to know.
For newsletter sign-ups I like to get a response, even if it’s automated. It lets me know that my email is registered and I’ll get the newsletters as intended.
I’m not 100% against getting Twitter follow DM’s. It really depends on the content. If they include a solid recommendation or link, it can be helpful. If it says something like “Thank you. How are you today?” then I get annoyed.
Here’s what pops into my mind… use an autoresponder, insert humor into it. People these days understand and I think accept rote messages. Make ’em funny with a can- do positive spin and you’ll have a winning combo!
I’m not a fan of auto-responders either, but I really like Jannie’s idea of making a funny … a little humor goes a long way.
I’d rather get an auto-response than no response. I agree, a corporate auto-response (“Your call is important to us…”) can be frustrating and pretty meaningless, but at least they’ve acknowledged receipt. On the other hand, when dealing with an individual or small company, an auto-response can be almost as good as a personal message, if it’s engaging and has a human touch. It’s still personal in the sense that the person (Charlie or Havi or Naomi etc.) is the one who wrote the message, and it was a sincere message. The corporate auto-responder message put together by some nameless intern and reviewed in committee for 6 months – it has neither meaning nor personal connection.
Thanks for the feedback and distinctions here, Kel!
I’m with everyone else about the vacation auto-responders. They actively improve the life of people who want to communicate with you by letting us know when to follow up (and saving us the hassle of writing three increasingly annoyed messages while you’re having margaritas at the swim-up bar).
For situations where I need some kind of message — like “yes, your attempt to subscribe to my newsletter was not thwarted by evil ether-demons” — I tend to prefer it if someone has put some effort into the text rather than just using the default message.
But neither of these addresses the difficult situation where you honestly don’t have time to respond to every query that comes to you. My personal take on it is this: it is ok for people who aren’t you-the-business-owner to respond; it is ok for you to link me to stuff that already exists on your blog etc if I missed it; it is ok for you to use pre-written copy if I’m writing about something super-common; it is ok for you to say “I’m afraid this question is too detailed for me to answer in a casual email; you can find my coaching rates here!”
In general, however, it’s not really okay for you to not respond to me at all unless you’re trying to put me off. (Even then, it’s a dangerous strategy: even if I’m not your Right Person, I might know some of your Right People and steer them away from you rather than towards if I feel you were rude.)
Good luck wading through this; it’s hard!
I really appreciate your perspective and feedback here, Sarah – especially the third paragraph, as those are often the very emails that are challenging as we grow. Thank you!
Another spin on this whole thing is the use of a personal assistant or virtural assistant (i.e., a real person, LOL) to handle your email responses. I’ve seen this done terribly — when the assistant does not have a compatible “email personality” as the business owner. I deal with one biz owner who has a fun, uplifting way of communicating and when you get a meeting request from her assistant… it’s like you got the bait and switch and are stuck with the most boring person at the party now.
The way your assistant communicates on your behalf absolutely has an impact on how your business/personal brand/image is conveyed. So make sure your assistant can write with some sort of personal connection personality, and — in his/her own style — is complimentary to your brand.
Amen.
Thanks for the fodder, Charlie!
Very helpful Plus Great information,
we appreciate advise especially coming from a professional.
Thanks again and keep up the great work!