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Comment by CSMastermind | Hacker News Reader

Recently I got an account on a developer tool (Checkly) because the company I joined uses it. I then got 5 different emails from them in a 48 hour period.

Like I'm sure many users sign up then drop out of your funnel but I'm part of an organization that's a paying customer. I'm already going to use your stuff. What possible business benefit could there be to you spamming me? If anything you're risking the inverse - it made me want to migrate away from the tool.

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Sounds like they are optimizing for a KPI on time to full integration. Someone else paid for it, now they want to make sure that you are actually using it.

Still absurd, but I know this is a problem friends of mine have had.

The "here's how to use the product you paid for" emails that trickle out over a few weeks or a month is vastly different than "throw you into every single marketing email bucket we have" but companies seem to lean toward the latter.

The 'cost' of email is borne by the recipient, mostly.

Hey CSMastermind, I'm founder at Checkly and I got a ping we were mentioned. We do send out some "getting started" messages on autopilot. We also did a product launch Thursday and then our regular changelog on Monday. That probably was overwhelming. If you could email me on tim -at- checklyhq -dot- com I will track down if we hit the the spam cannon too hard.

I know this is well-intentioned and not an automated message, but I find it ironic that you managed to get an additional message to him over here.

one asking them to establish contact for communication to continue, no less. xD

I can't help be reminded of those "if you'd like to unsubscribe call us so we can harass you with offers even more" you see in some company terms and conditions.

> if we hit the the spam cannon too hard

Maybe consider, oh I don't know, not deploying a spam cannon in the first place?

The good news is that this sort of thing is enough to trigger the spam filter in my email program so I'll never see it.

Companies have this astonishing arrogance assuming they should be able to interrupt actual humans with robot messages from noreply@crapcorp.com - typically marketing messages that cannot actually be replied to and do not qualify as respectful communication.

>Maybe consider, oh I don't know, not deploying a spam cannon in the first place?

I'm not at all related to the people you are talking to, but I am a dev who has accidentally built spam cannons before. It is surprisingly easy to spam people - you need to deliberately build in checks - and put them in the right places to prevent spam cannons.

I don't use your tool and I'm unrelated to CSMastermind, but I can tell you that you absolutely hit the "spam cannon" too hard. 5 messages in 48 hours? That's absolutely ridiculous. They could all have been 1 message if it was important that they get that info, and it could have been 0 messages if it wasn't.

You are correct. I will figure out two things.

1. Why our fancy expensive mailing/marketing tool (Intercom) does not spread these messages in a relaxed fashion (it should)

2. If of those five messages, maybe two were the obligatory "confirm your email" and standard "Welcome to Checkly, this is what we do"

TL;DR we should not spam.

We checked our Intercom. We spammed. One user got six emails in a 5 day span. There were some separate initiatives going on. We didn't check the settings and current outgoing mail. We will change it.

BTW: all of this was done without any bad intent. It's 100% us being stupid and not coordinating and being diligent enough.

This is such an impressive series of responses. I know some folks are flipping you shit here, but I’ve seen a lot of people try to “engage” with customers, in HN and elsewhere, and I think you’ve done it really nicely. You sound like a human; you admit mistakes; you follow up. Good on you.

Send a seventh to apologize! /s

(on a serious note, good on you for taking action though. +1)

You only get one chance to make a first impression.

>You only get one chance to make a first impression.

Well, this person had 6 first impressions.

tnolet, if I get five emails from a company with 48 hours, I will set up a spam rule for them. If I really need to get that much help to get started, your UX design is likely not very good.

You are correct. I’m the same. Our emails are even pretty good. Our UX is pretty damn good. Somehow we dropped the ball here.

When you fix it, write up a post mortem so others can lesrn from your mistake!

Since it's distressingly common.

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