Have been building a new website for a client of mine, and things are just about done.
While setting things up in cPanel, the thought occurred to me…
What contact e-mail addresses should I create for my client’s business?
This may sound like a rather dumb question, but to do things right, I think it requires more thought than a casual observer may give credit to the situation.
I have some ideas, but am interested in your thoughts.
Really, I think there are two questions…
1.) What TYPES of e-mail addresses would a new business selling things online need?
2.) What NAMES should be used to represent the areas determined in #1?
I think there are at least two basic “departments”: sales and support (for new and old customers)
so i usually make two addresses: sales@example.com and support@example.com
I think this might also depend on the client. They might already have an email structure that they want to use? Or at least that they want the new email addresses forwarded to?
This is a new business, so no e-mails have been set up.
To clarify my OP, my problem is not that I cannot think up contact e-mail addresses. Instead, I’m not sure WHICH ONES do we really need and want??
For example, here are some contact e-mails that I thought of…
I think having too many Contact Emails could create confusion with customers, and chaos with my client. (After all, who wants to have to check 3-5 e-mail accounts to basically offer the same service to customers?!)
So, maybe it is better to just have one address for Tech Support, instead of #1, #2, #4, and #8??
Then again, maybe people like having more specific choices, versus a “catch-all” e-mail like “customer-service@ourdomain.com”
But you don’t see “real” companies with just one e-mail for the whole business?!
Then again, as far as my client’s website is concerned, I did build a “Contact Us” form with a drop-down of what the request is about, so in that context, maybe just having “support@OurDomain.com” is sufficient.
But when I originally posted this question, I was thinking along the lines of what e-mails do you need when you print business cards, do signage, and list contact info on your website.
I think most larger companies have a handful of e-mails on their websites, right?
For a school of 3000 students and another 1000 faculty (numbers are close to being accurate. Dunno the exacts) all needing help at one point or another, we manage with one e-mail for technical and customer support (syshelp@site.com).
Granted we do not merge that with our sales e-mail since we do not have one.
I think you’re sweating the small stuff. I just placed 3 online orders this evening (seed/plant companies) 'tis the season.
The shopping portions of the sites worked so I had no need to contact anyone. But I went back and had a look. They all had one contact email address. The kicker is that they were all quite simple to find. In my opinion, that’s a biggie.
At a minimum, I would want some kind of contact.
If your site doesn’t have a “buy here” thingie, then I think you should lose your aversion to anything with the word “sales.” If I like your product, I don’t want to search around for how to purchase. Smack me in the face with it and tell me where to buy.
These were small companies. So I looked at a larger company and found these contact emails:
Request Technical Support
Request a Service Price Offer or RMA
Request a Sales Contact
Request a Quote
Report Product or Quality Issues
Report Website Issues
Contact Public Relations
Except that no one has voiced the the need for an abuse@domain.com address (to report SPAM etc.) this is more thought than need be. Except for cases where it should be "employee_name@domain,com` why the fuss?
A key question is how the client wants to manage incoming emails.
If they want to have teams/individuals (depending on the size of the company and the department) working separately, each dealing with their part of the business – eg sales, billing, marketing, customer care – then it might make more sense to set up generic accounts for each main department, so that most customers’ emails will go straight to the right inbox (of course, we all know there are some customers who will just pick one email address and send everything to that, but if you can get most of them going to the right place then that’s a good start).
On the other hand, if the client wants a system where a bank of customer service folk (or just one person!) will deal with all contacts, and everyone in the team can answer enquiries and requests across the spectrum, then it’s better to have a single generic email address – no point in giving out multiple different email addresses if they are then all going to get channelled into the same place.
This is more of a technical question - although IIRC you’re a “geek” - but what is the best way to filter messages from generic email addresses and forms?
For my “Contact Us” form - which currently sends everything to “admin@domain.com”, should I be putting a “tag” in the Subject Line so that the email server can filter and route things, or is that prone to be more of a hassle than a help?
Likewise, if I had a catchall e-mail, is there some way I could program things to label incoming e-mails?
I realize a lot of my concerns are premature considering this is a new startup business. However, the designer and programmer in me likes to anticipate issues before they come up, versus getting a call in 6 months where my client is crying because they have a horrible mess, and then I have to scratch my head and figure out how to fix a mess that could have been avoided had I done better planning…
