The wrong way to "personalize" your startup's welcome e-mail | Hacker News Reader

The wrong way to "personalize" your startup's welcome e-mail

blaketech.wordpress.com

47 pointsbebeastie17 comments

A perfect example of how not to "personalize" your startup's welcome e-mail.

Weak overreaction.

First, is it really that big a deal you got an email that looked like it was from someone personally but may have been automated (in fact you never proved that it was automated)?

Second, are you really that bothered that a company whose product is helpdesk ticketing software uses helpdesk ticketing software to manage customer correspondence?

Third, are you really that bothered by the informality of a web company?

The only mistake I saw here was using staff that are probably outsourced and certainly not native English speakers to handle sales questions.

(1) No, not at all. But I never claimed it was. I actually think it is a good idea to make automated messages appear to be from an actual individual...my point was that you need to be consistent...if you're going to be personal be personal throughout the entire process (and don't revert to a ticketing system halfway through...or don't let customers think you're reverting to a ticketing system).

(2) Again, related to the point above. I'm not bothered by the fact that they are using their software to manage their correspondence, I'm bothered that they tried to pretend they weren't. If I had sent an unsolicited e-mail I would have expected a prompt automated reply. But I didn't send an unsolicited e-mail, rather they reached out to me with questions and a misrepresentation of their knowledge of my company's website.

(3) I made it clear that it wasn't my style but that I understand how others may like it. And I don't agree with the implication that all "web companies" should be measured on different standards/metrics than brick-and-mortar companies.

Fair enough - I understand now that it was the inconsistency in their level of personality that was the issue. I agree that insincerity is bad but it's pretty borderline how much you'd read into one of these "semi-automated" emails anyway - most companies will give you the usual "we love what you're doing and want to help you out" and I don't think anything more if it than I do when someone says "hello how are you" without expecting a breakdown of my day.

I guess with point (3), you can't have your cake and eat it too - you either have formal but impersonal or informal but personal. Web companies often opt for the latter, because engagement with customers as real people has proved to be a great long-term strategy.

I think the thing that feels most uncomfortable is that the first sentence is basically an outright lie. It's clearly, as you say, the standard "you're cool, so are we, let's play" line. The issue, I guess, is that they've tried to masquerade that as something else.

> "First, is it really that big a deal you got an email that looked like it was from someone personally but may have been automated"

That by itself is not the big deal - plenty of emails are automated yet written in a personal manner (Dear Mr. Smith, etc etc) - but this one was deliberately deceptive. It purported to have looked at the customer's website, when it all likelihood nothing of the sort happened.

That's what left a bad taste in my mouth from the whole thing - it's scummy and misleading, hardly something you'd want to project onto your potential customers.

It probably works well for a majority of their signups. More smart than scummy, imho.

I don't disagree with the sincerity issue, but again, it only appears insincere to you.

Oh it's not about insincerity - I think we're all very used to "we mean it but we don't" doublespeak from companies nowadays.

It's about the fact that they practically lied in their communication about what they have done - sure, this isn't especially scandalous, but it is low.

If they had some canned stuff like "we're sure you're doing great things, and would love to work with you individually to tailor our product to your needs... yadi yada" that'd be a-ok.

But they had a bot pretend that they actually visited my site and looked at my company's offerings... that's pretty lame.

Uh, the company is originally Danish and I believe most of the staff are still in fact Danes. Her grammar was poor but understandable. I'm not sure why this guy gets so rage-filled when the email is innocuous when read coming from the mouth of a non-native speaker of English.

Calling a response to any sort of support mail a "ticket" is pretty common as well and certainly not worthy of offense.

Fair enough (sort of), but if I were to start a business in a language that I'm not a native in, I wouldn't try supporting those people using non-native speakers. The languages and idioms of cultures differ greatly around the globe, and sometimes you may need to tweak your site to meet the expectations of your customers.

Then again, I don't run a business, so the costs of localizing customer support and "fit and finish" for Zendesk may be justified by the benefit.

Pretending to have looked at a site, especially if the pretending is automated, is disrespectful, I agree.

The Grand Finale was pretty weak though. I have no idea what ICE Webinar is, and whether it relates to the poster's business. That's a separate issue. But to choose poor (OK, really poor) grammar as the Grand Finale is ungracious. There are many non-native speakers working on the web and in cube farms; cut them the same slack you'd mostly get if you were walking around in their country.

Great post, bebeastie. I thought your post was really top quality and you raised some interesting points in it. I especially appreciated your insights near the end of the post.

Thanks. This is my first post so I appreciate the positive feedback. Hopefully more to come...

Not sure why you're being downvoted, I read this as a really smart prank on OP. It actually just made my day.

Humor, even when apropos, has a rocky ride on HN. There are plenty of people keen to avoid the site going down a meme-heavy Reddit path and who vote down all but the geekiest humor (even though constantly voting up posts by tech community trolls is seemingly OK <g>).

I reacted to the "sharing the inbox" statement... One would hope they'd have a more efficient structure than that for their ticket handling, I'd say.

why all the hate?

ZenDesk's tools are horrible - they have a sheen of good visual design on the sales site, and then the tool itself is like being tortured to death by a screaming hamster.

Not surprised they're using gutter tactics like faux personal emails.

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