Route info with E-mail robots

Home Office Computing, Jan, 1998 by Jeffrey Spencer

SOMETIMES CUSTOMERS AND POTENTIAL clients just want information. They don't need to talk to you. They simply need such facts as a description of your company's products or services, directions to your place of business, or basic price lists. To accommodate your customers without tying up your time, look into using an e-mail robot: a mailbot.

Also known as e-mail-on-demand or autoresponders, mailbots greatly simplify your selling and customer service efforts. A mailbot is a special e-mail account (such as info@yourbiz.com) that automatically replies with canned messages whenever clients send it e-mail.

With a mailbot account, you can instantly respond to clients' requests for detail, 24 hours a day, seven days a week. To help you read the benefits of mailbots, follow these dos and don'ts.

Do create an electronic brochure. To make sure your marketing message consistent, your mailbot should forward information similar to what's in your current print brochure.

Don't promote multiple products with one mailbot. Obtain one address for each product or service you sell to track responses for each product separately and conduct targeted follow-up marketing. Also establish individual mailbots for customer service, sales, billing, and other categories to supply customers with specific information for each group.

Do test your message until it works. Send the mailbot e-mail from your regular business account. Examine the message you receive for formatting and manually enter line breaks to correct problems. After you start promoting the mailbot, feel free to change the contents as a test of different prices, sales copy, and copy length.

Don't forget to advertise. Put the mailbot address in print ads, on your Web site, on your business card, in your e-mail signature file, and in your newsgroup postings.

Do include an order form. If your mailbot sells a product or service, customers may not prefer to send a credit card number via e-mail. Your message should include something that customers can print out so they can respond by mail or fax. If you have secure online ordering at your Web site, you can also refer people to that address.

Don't leave out a phone number. Some people may require additional information by phone.

Do announce your vacation. Change the response on your mailbot to reflect that you're away, so would-be clients don't think you're ignoring them. Also configure your regular e-mail address to act like a mailbot that tells people you'll get back to them by a certain date.

Don't neglect inquiries. If you ask them, most mailbot service providers will send you a record of the e-mail addresses of all the people who have requested your information. Save these e-mail addresses and follow up within five to seven days of the mailbot's response. Tell prospects you saw their request and ask if you can provide any additional information.

Do use mailbots to track your responses. If you advertise your business in print, set up an individual mailbot for each ad so you can monitor its effectiveness. If this is too expensive, ask customers to put a code in the subject field of their e-mail. By giving each ad a unique code, you can determine who's responding to which ad.

Don't spam addresses collected from your mailbot. Repeatedly sending unsolicited pitches to e-mail addresses that have previously requested your information may cause problems with your mailbot service provider (not to mention turning off potential clients). Typically, the carrier will cancel your account for violating the terms of service.

Do use your creativity. Any information that you want to provide to your customers is a perfect target for a mailbot. Brainstorm with your colleagues to figure out whether anything you currently mail could be turned into a mailbot.

Mailbots 1-2-3

Almost any e-mail service can act as a mailbot, including America Online and CompuServe. Rented mailbots generally run about $10 per month.

Make sure your mailbot account allows an unlimited number of hits and that you can update the contents of your mailbot without help from your service provider. Here are your main mailbot service options.

Free response. Free e-mail services, such as netaddress.usa.net, and free remailers, such as Bigfoot (www.bigfoot.com), can reply to any incoming message with their "mail rules" features. It's an inexpensive way to start with mailbots.

Mailbot service. Commercial Internet presence providers such as InfoBack Corp. (www.infoback.net) keep your mailbot running full-time, which is the best way to market a product or service.

Internet service provider. Ask your local ISP if it offers 24-hour-a-day mailbot services. If it doesn't, leave your computer on all the time and have Eudora Pro (619-658-1291, 800-238-3672, www.eudora.com; Win, Mac; $89) or the Rules Wizard for Microsoft's Outlook e-mail program (www.microsoft.com/outlook; Win 95; free download) retrieve messages and respond to inquiries.

Online service. E-mail Connection (425-827-6467, www.emailconnection.com; Win 95, Win; $50) can collect e-mail from the major online services and respond with a message. The disadvantage: You have to leave your computer on. The advantage: On AOL you can use an extra screen name as the mailbot. For the others, it's a great way to announce messages such as vacation notices.