Forum Moderators: phranque
I swear to god about twice a week I get emails some completely ridiculous email like this (This is an actual email).
Dear sir,
Am interested in <blue widgets>, kindly send me information.
Thanks
sam
I get about 20 questions a week and always spend time to write a detailed (500-1000 words) responce (which I then turn into an article. But there is no way to answer this guy in an email, the entire SITE is information... sheeesh.
Blue widgets come in various shades of blue including azure, cyan, turquoise, aquamarine, teal, steel, powder, navy.Which particular shade are you interested in?
If that's not the structure of widgets then perhaps ask them if they are interested in the history, culture, geography (insert classification here) of blue widgets.
Do you sell blue widgets? If so, maybe send them (or have ready to send) a sample of blue widgets with indicative pricing.
Some people do not seem to fully grasp the idea of navigating around a site - they do a search - and there it is.... then they do another search...
We are travel related and get so many of these vague emails like :
" Dear Monkscuba,
We are interested in visiting your location, please send a quote.
PS I couldn't be bothered to look through your web site for information, I prefer to waste your time with this deliberately vague request"
No mention of WHEN, how many people, how long they stay, what activities they want to do etc..
I have now made a draft reply to such mails, very polite and with links to the various sections on our web site where the information can be found. I just tweak the draft mail to suit the query. I got a bit tired of writing these replies again and again, so the draft is good. It means I can write back very quickly and politely.
Before I did this, my replies were sometimes a bit terse and direct if I was in a bad mood or busy.
Please cancel my order.
No Name, No order ID, nothing. I think they think we are mind readers.
Well, the thing is to always be polite when you write back to such people. I do realise that maybe they HAVEN'T seen our web site at all, maybe got the email address from somewhere else, like a directory. Or maybe they are just very busy and very rich and may end up as a very good customer if you take time to explain everything to them.
Take a deep breath before answering such emails!
I am in Europe ..it says so very clearly on the site in question ..
These guys are always in the states!
Yes the site is in English and in French ..but it does say in both languages where I am!
Thus ..inspite of what most members say about sites full of "good fast loading text info" being the "ideal" with only a few of those "horrible slow image" things ..
I wonder ..
How many of the average surfers can actually read?!
Anyhow despite the site telling you the delay in delivery etc etc etc She still emailed me two days later moaning about the non delivery and how she knew she couldnt trust this web thing blah blah blah.
Reply, time passes. get another email from her, She's over the moon that the games have arrived 'such good condition from so far away'! I.e UK - USA. Made me laugh and laugh.
Last week I got another enquiry from a different person: "Do you have widget2 in stock?". I replied that we did. He replied "This is urgent...what price?"
Shows that you can't win.
Lets pretend my topic is Gardening. (It is a very broad topic)
He is basically asking for my to send him information on gardening.
The same thing happens on a travel forum I moderate.
People sometimes come on and ask the stupidest questions:
I am leaving to the UK in 2 days, please give me places to do, things to do, the cheapest way to do everything, fast ways to make money, and places with cheap beer. Pleas email it to me at...
The forum is a great community and (like WebmasterWorld) the questions are almost always anwered by some kind soul. But I refuse to, why? Just because he is a moron who refuses to do any work on the subject himself doesnt mean I have to write a 2,000 word responce to his stupid questions.
Also get emails saying "how do I order" even though it say's "Click-Here to order" in large bold face type and also clickable-graphics all over the place. Funny thing is when I reply it seems like they rarely place the order?
In addition we occasionally get emails saying they want their order changed, cancelled or whatever but only give their first name (i.e. Thanks, John) with no order id, order date, no address, not even a city or state.
On my websites which are not selling anything, just a free knowledge type of information site (with Adsense running) I often get people saying "please send me all the details on blah blah blah" even though it is something not covered in the website and would require hours of research and work in getting the data and sending it to them, all for free!
What idiots they are and how frustrating it is. The public seems so stupid (and getting worse) not sure how much more of this we can take! Is it any wonder all 19 of the 9-11 hijackers were 100% successful 3-yrs ago today?
[edited by: trader at 6:01 pm (utc) on Sep. 11, 2004]
How about the ones who sayPlease cancel my order.
No Name, No order ID, nothing. I think they think we are mind readers.
With that kind of customers, it wouldn't even help if you were mind readers.
if you know what I mean...
-B
Dear site - I have looked all over the internet and cannot find the airport code
my reply: http://www.google.com/search?sourceid=navclient&ie=UTF-8&q=airport+code+city+name - my site is #1.
What is the weather like during $month?
my reply: www.mysite.com/weather/month.html
I would like information about $X (hotels, real estate, restaurants... you name it).
my reply: Thank you for your query. We actually have all this information already on our website in this section (URL). I apologize that you were unable to find it, which is strange as our website has won numerous awards for design and many, many compliments for ease of use, etc. However, I would like to personally express my gratitude for bringing this problem to my attention.
Please send me the printed version of your webpage.
my reply: Please use the print command - the easiest way to do this is press [ctrl] p.
My computer says that I cannot do this, because I don't have a printer. Please send this information to $street, $city, $state.
my reply: I have just discovered that there is a Kinko's in your area ($street address). They will print out the entire site for you for a modest fee. We recommend doing this, as we would have to charge you nearly $30 US dollars to ship the print outs from $country.
And (as someone who has done this many times), THEY WILL NEVER SAY THANK YOU!
SN
I always write back courteously even though it pains me severly to keep my fingers talking nice. :)
She emailed me about 10 questions about are services and openly admitted that she was asking because she was building her own site.
I was courteous and replied to her with a detailed response. She never said thank-you.
Then a week later I get an email from her that says to the effect (I won’t quote cause that is against the TOS)
IMAGINE HOW ANNOYED i WAS WHEN i DISCOVERED THAT YOUR NAME HAD IMPLANTED ITSELF ON MY COMPUTER AS MY ID WITH A REDIRECT ON MY EMAIL... i WILLBE FORWARDING THIS TO THE ATTORNEY GENERALS OFFICE AND TO MICROSOFT...PROBABLY OTHERS...YOU DIP!
Can you imagine?
The DIP :-)
IMAGINE HOW ANNOYED i WAS WHEN i DISCOVERED THAT YOUR NAME HAD IMPLANTED ITSELF ON MY COMPUTER AS MY ID WITH A REDIRECT ON MY EMAIL... i WILLBE FORWARDING THIS TO THE ATTORNEY GENERALS OFFICE AND TO MICROSOFT...PROBABLY OTHERS...YOU DIP!
If you know the address of the site she was building, I'd check it out for your content. The bit of her email you paraphrased above sounds a lot like a newbie's reaction to finding that the webpage they copied still has mailto links to the site they copied it from...
-B
A while ago I put together a nice friendly standard response and it really simplifies things. They get the helpful answer they're looking for with minimal effort from my part. It also allows me to spend more time answering the 1% of them that have follow up questions.
There will be people that are difficult to communicate with, who won't understand your carefully crafted explanations and there's pretty much nothing you can do about that. All you can do is be patient, try your best and be patient some more.
I really am a DIP. I can't believe I didn't think of that myself. It wouldn't be the first time.
Good lord somebody slap me!
Scariest of all, they often include their home address, full name and phone number. They seriously need a class in Internet 101 if they're sending that info to every Tom, Dick and Susan who has a website online!
Most of my email templates link to either a section of my content site's FAQ, a search in my site's forums or the results of a Google search, complete with an explanation of what search terms were used.
Funniest emails are from kids doing school reports. I have ONE page on my content site about a reptile found throughout N. America. That one page, each school semester, generates emails from kids wanting to know all manner of things about the reptile -- what does it eat, why is theirs sickly in its tiny terrarium in their bedroom, can I tell them what sex theirs is (no photos attached, though that wouldn't help me even if they were).
Fun stuff. They all get sent to Google. Or a page to buy a book on the subject (via Amazon associates).
As much as the emails are frustrating and time-consuming at times, however, for a content only site they're a goldmine of opportunity. For example, if I got with the program, I'd have a whole section of my site dedicated to that reptile instead of a single page. It's on my TO DO list, in fact.
However, dumb questions are often telling you something. "I can't find X" (when it's on the nav of every page) suggests that X could be made more prominent, or described better, or mentioned more often. There will always be a few people who are hopelessly lazy or inconsiderate, and there's no helping them. But often your navigation and site structure isn't as clear as you like to think it is.
The main thing this tells me is that they are not very experienced with the web and maybe I should cater for this better (there is a limit of course).
I guess it depends on what business you're in and how you make your money.
If you (or your client) provide a face to face service on time and materials, these so called "DIPs" can turn out to be your best clients.
Sometimes (often?) the "customer dis-service rep" is rude, insulting, and honestly believes their computer screen/database is factual when a customer reports otherwise.
Okay.. you're right. You be a company and be right, and we'll be the customers and be wrong. And then when you don't have any customers left, will you still be a company?
The customer is always right. It has to be that way. If you are a company and you think the customer is wrong, you need some lessons on diplomacy and persuasion. the customer is not wrong; the customer is frustrated and annoyed.
It's at the top of the page in big letters. This happens about once a day. The link is very prominent, shows up on every page, and at least 5 times on the homepage.
It's at the top of the page in big letters
This is not pointed at you zomega42 because I have no idea about your sites, but it amazes me how many sites these days have menus that only display in Internet Explorer.
Even some major SEM companies have menues that only display in IE. ;)
