More Evidence Of Email Going MIA for Customer Service

Following on the heels of our study, (Return to Sender - Most Companies Receive Failing Grade in Responding to Their Email Campaigns), Talisma, when reviewing eretailers email response during customer service, discovered some abysmal results of their own.

Their study found "despite this communication channel being one of the most favored by Internet users, 34 percent of email queries went unanswered."

Our findings (which covered other online companies besides retailers) revealed companies performed even poorer when replying to email questions, concerns and other inquiries:

-only 15% of companies that sent opt-in email messages over the span of a week answered subscriber responses to their own emails
-63% failed to reply at all
-15% of the replies immediately bounced as the sender did not have a valid return email address.
-The remaining 7% of email messages had an automated message that said they did not accept email messages.

Wake up, folks. Just because it is cheaper than answering the phone doesn't mean you can ignore it.