NO-REPLY EMAILS | PW @TheExperienceNetwork

Well obviously the answer is yes - but let's understand why that's the case.

For starters let's take a quick look at just at what experts in the field of email have to say. So here are a selection of articles on why you shouldn't use them...

For starters I thought that Chris Arrandale - the author of the first article made a very good point about the legislation:

Post GDPR, it is more important than ever to take the time to evaluate whether you should use a no-reply address for your marketing campaigns. How can you expect your subscribers to contact you to claim their rights if you don’t allow them to do so?

This is a bit like those irritating post GDPR cookie policies that don't give you an option to refuse to accept them! And the situation is made a whole lot worse when they deliberately (oh c'mon you know they are doing it on purpose to reduce your ability to contact them!) either hide or actually don't make an email available for you to contact them - unless you call them first - that's you Scottish Power that is!

Apparently, according to Michael Linthorst in article 4 - in many countries sending emails with a no-reply address is not allowed. In some European countries for example you have to have a working address people can reply to if they have any kind of question about your email - sadly it seems not in the UK - don't tell me that's another Brexit ****up!!

Julia Gulevich who wrote the second article list as her first reason for not using no-reply email addresses as it makes it appear that, by not allowing the recipients to reply to your email campaigns, you don't care about them or their responses or problems.

Oh boy, that is so true. And I don't give a rat's arse what the sender may say that's the way that I, the recipient, of the email perceive the situation to be. If they cared they'd make it easy for me. I reckon the absolute master of this approach has to be RyanAir which has applied this no-reply ethos to it's entire operation- words fail me!

The third article points out the issue of people auto-filtering no-reply emails as spam in their inbox. This is something that I'm shortly going to be instigating. Personally I find it insulting, demeaning and dehumanising to receive a demand for money (a bill/invoice) from someone who is providing me with a service....yet clearly isn't interested in customer service.

As an aside here it also irritates me when companies send me invoices (in pdf format) at work and have locked them so I can't electronically sign them and forward them for payment. I've adopted a policy of simply ignoring these emails now - I have written back and explained the issue but they don't seem to care so, sod 'em!

Michael Linthorst in article 4 also raises the issue of people complaining about spam - some people don’t look for an opt-out link (which if they're there at all are in very small pale print at the foot of the email) but hit the reply button when they want to unsubscribe from your emailings. And when people get that "Message Undeliverable" response - hackles will rise, of that you can be sure.

Ryan Phelan (article 5) is a respected thought leader and nationally (Canada) distinguished speaker. Ryan serves as Chairman Emeritus EEC Advisory Board, and member of the board of directors for the ESPC. His view is that:

Your brand has a personality, a face. The face might be your logo, but it’s all part of your brand equity. When you send an email with “do-not-reply” or “no-reply” in the sender line, you’re really saying to your customers, “I am never going to look at the email that you want to send me. Never.”

It's true - think RyanAir's boss man = Arrogant Twat, Virgin's boss - Goofy, wacky but innovative, Scottish Power's Linda Clayton - ah sorry she's a figment of their imagination - even the image used for her LinkedIn "profile" is called "ghost-person" - I rest my case. A classic example of just how easy it is for a brand to go wrong - and then just ignore the fact and carry on regardless - doh!

Ms Clayton allegedly signs all of their customer service communication but does she actually exist? If she does, or doesn't, by jove she still manages to irritate people. I'm still getting comments and tweets from a post about her/ I wrote years ago! So get this brand personality thing wrong at your peril!!

And here's where we get to the meat of this. How am I likely to react to receiving these emails? Well dear reader, how do you think?,/p> nuclear explosion

...and you're not wrong!

Yup! In a world where there is so much competition a key aspect of customer loyalty is providing good customer service and making it easy for people to do business with you - including contacting you to sort out any issues that might arise - small or large. So to adopt a policy of communicating through the medium of a no-reply email is tantamount to a business shooting itself in the head!

Am I likely to do more (any!) business with them? Not a cat's chance in hell!

So you marketers and communications professionals out there working for these large (and increasingly small) companies listen up - not just my musings but those of the respected bloggers and experts above. To be brutally honest there were a lot more links to stuff, in fact Google identified 1,200,000,000 results on the subject of "no reply email addresses" in only 0.40 seconds - yes that was 1.2 billion links!

This is obviously a major issue yet there's lots and lots of guidance for companies to rectify the issue - I don't know why they haven't but let's just hope that they do get their collective **** together.

Should no-reply email addresses be banned? YES!

Oh by the way here is just a selection of the no-reply email addresses I've received, and organisations that have p***ed me off recently - ok I got bored so stopped adding them!!

Auto Trader <noreply@autotrader.co.uk>
Adobe <account-noreply@adobe.com>
ASM Auto Recycling (Oxford) <noreply@partshark.co.uk>
Bannatyne <noreply@bannatyne.co.uk>
Cirrus <no-reply@s.backerkit.com>
Coinbase <no-reply@coinbase.com>
confirmation@easyJet.com <donotreply@easyjet.com>
Dyson <do.not.reply@dyson.com>
Aegon <DoNotReply@aegon.co.uk>
'Google Analytics' <analytics-noreply@google.com>

As a postscript here's another example of shoddy practice - this time it's from LinkedIn, or rather it's from Angela from LinkedIn Premium. This is allegedly Angela.

Hi paul, Thanks for being an active member of LinkedIn. To show our appreciation, we'd like to give you a special offer: one free month of LinkedIn Premium. Get your free month. Cancel anytime.

Yeah right...here's my response...

Dear Angela from LinkedIn Premium Give me a free month WITHOUT the requirement for me to enter my credit card details and I might try it. But I’m NEVER going to accept a FREE offer which puts the onus on me to stop it becoming NOT FREE!
And another thing Angela from LinkedIn Premium, why is your email really 'Angela from LinkedIn Premium' donotreply@e.linkedin.com

I think that's pretty shoddy marketing myself - but hey what do I know after a lifetime in marketing :)

no-reply@ email addresses - should they be banned?

Well obviously the answer is yes - but let's understand why that's the case.

...and you're not wrong!

Should no-reply email addresses be banned? YES!