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Our company (bottomless, YC W19) actually sends emails from yesreply@bottomless.com. It’s crazy for companies to discourage replies and force customers to find

Our company (bottomless, YC W19) actually sends emails from yesreply@bottomless.com. It’s crazy for companies to discourage replies and force customers to find a different channel when the email itself has all relevant context.

Sebb767 6y ago
> It’s crazy for companies to discourage replies and force customers to find a different channel when the email itself has all relevant context. From what I've heard this is not about blocking customer input, but instead became standard due to the sheer amount of auto-reply traffic you're getting. If every one of those mails opens a ticket... Get two systems which send mail receipts in a loop for double the fun. A second, minor reason might also be that you need to set up a mail ticketing system. That's no problem for a startup, but things might look different for a big company with established support teams of hundreds of people. The situation might have changed by now, though, as the trend seems to reverse slowly. But as far as I know, these were the reasons on why donotreply@ became so common.
- seizethecheese 6y ago
  Interesting, we have had virtually no problem with auto-reply traffic. New collaborative email clients make it a lot easier to handle support without ticketing systems. We still are rather small, so it’s possible we will learn ourselves what all these companies already know, hah.
  - paulsutter 6y ago
    Which email client do you use or recommend for this?
    - seizethecheese 6y ago
      We use Front with a custom plugin. Fronts a bit buggy but very useful
  - Sebb767 6y ago
    Let's hope the situation is better now ;) A factor might also be what kind of mails you send. If it's important stuff for a specific user it make sense to have a direct reply. If you set a reply address to a newsletter with millions of subscribers the situation probably looks a bit different, especially when said sign up happens without much user input (i.e. "click here to also receive our newsletter").
- paulsutter 6y ago
  Wow, for the low effort of writing an OOO filter, you can stand out as a company that cares about customers? We use a staff member’s email address on our outbound mail, so that people don’t even need to hesitate before responding.
  - seizethecheese 6y ago
    Yeah my thought exactly. Also, going through the effort of filtering tickets also sounds worth it
  - moksly 6y ago
    I think it depends a little on the context. I work in the public sector for instance, setting up a filter for our mail is something that, well, no one has successfully done yet. It’s not for lack of trying, we’ve had (and will continue to have) corporations with both big tech, startups and universities until we get something that’s actually better than outlook rules and a lot of manual sorting. The thing is, we cannot allow to let a single message land in the wrong inbox for more than 48hours. Obviously we don’t send “don’t reply e-mails” and we certainly never would from a domain that isn’t even ours, but filtering messages isn’t always easy. Hell, even with the inclusion of actual UUIDs for departments, and a national standard for sending secure business-to-business mail (post includes) that incorporates these standards, and throwing world leading AI science at it with Microsoft/Amazon/IBM behind it, we still employ two full time positions to handle the left overs and mistakes.
  - ajuc 6y ago
    I've seen a big international bank internal network shut down because someone added a group mail of +- 10 000 people to a thread with jokes. Significant percent of these people were on holidays at the time so they responded automatically to each other with "out of office" messages and finally the network couldn't handle it. Emails are serious business ;)
    - eru 6y ago
      > I've seen a big international bank internal network shut down because someone added a group mail of +- 10 000 people to a thread with jokes. Those stories are always entertaining. But honestly, those organisations only have themselves to blame. Filtering and stopping these internal chains shouldn't be any harder than basic spam filtering. Mostly easier, because your filter inputs are not as adversarial.
- HenryBemis 6y ago
  I believe it's to make it a bit more difficult to get the replies. If someone REALLY wants to reply, they can spend the extra 1-2 minutes to go to the company's website and either write to them via their Contact Form(s), or find their "info/sales/privacy/etc@company.com email, and FW the original+comment to that new address.
  - AstralStorm 6y ago
    Sure. Or they might quit using your services because they're not accessible. If they're really ticked off, give you bad reviews. Bonus that support mails are hidden behind ludicrous forms, terrible website design, images (to prevent spam) and so on.
- srtjstjsj 6y ago
  If it wasn't about blocking customer input, the email would have a Reply link to a website, or an email address to reply to.
alasdair_ 6y ago
I’m terribly sad bottomless.com isn’t a startup devoted to serving the vast market of users who only want to order the top half of a bikini set. Or perhaps particularly odd nudists.
- zingermc 6y ago
  I'm hopeful it's a startup that sells only the tops of muffins.
  - r00fus 6y ago
    Top of the muffin to you!
- seizethecheese 6y ago
  For this reason, we were able to own the bottomless namespace pretty easily
- 082349872349872 6y ago
  Or a cloud startup catering to computer scientists, offering Poset Reversal As A Service. > "Computer scientists commonly choose models which have bottoms, but prefer them topless."
dorkwood 6y ago
I agree. I personally feel that if you're either unwilling or unable to handle the responses you might receive, then you shouldn't send the email in the first place.
- noizejoy 6y ago
  I respectfully disagree with that position as a general rule. The wide variety of reasons for emails is more nuanced. Reality is more than all or nothing, 0 or 1.
  - mola 6y ago
    Can you elaborate? I'm struggling to find a valid example of a one way mail stream from company to customers where all customers will never want to reply yet still want to get these mails.
    - jpindar 6y ago
      It's impossible to say that "all people will never want to do X", as there are some strange people out there. However, there are many emails that I want that I would never want to reply to. When I order something I like getting the emails saying 'your package has been shipped...", and they typically come from a donotreply address. I follow a number of repositories on Github, their notifications come from noreply.github.com. I also like knowing when there are new versions of various assets I've gotten from the Unity asset store, these notifications come from no-reply@unity3d.com. I am subscribed to the headlines from my local newspapers, one of them is delivered from noreply@patch.com. My utility company sends payment confirmation emails from noreply@unitil.com. I like knowing about the occasional blog post from authors I follow on Goodreads, these come from no-reply@mail.goodreads.com I like knowing when games on my Steam wishlist go on sale, these notifications come from noreply@steampowered.com In several of my past positions, a large part of my job was purchasing. As such, I needed the many industry newsletters I was subscribed to. In the manufacturing industry, these are one of the easiest ways to find out about new products. I do some work as a graphic designer, and I like getting the emails from various sites that sell - and often give away - assets. I could go on...

Sebb767 6y ago

> It’s crazy for companies to discourage replies and force customers to find a different channel when the email itself has all relevant context. From what I've heard this is not about blocking customer input, but instead became standard due to the sheer amount of auto-reply traffic you're getting. If every one of those mails opens a ticket... Get two systems which send mail receipts in a loop for double the fun. A second, minor reason might also be that you need to set up a mail ticketing system. That's no problem for a startup, but things might look different for a big company with established support teams of hundreds of people. The situation might have changed by now, though, as the trend seems to reverse slowly. But as far as I know, these were the reasons on why donotreply@ became so common.

seizethecheese 6y ago
Interesting, we have had virtually no problem with auto-reply traffic. New collaborative email clients make it a lot easier to handle support without ticketing systems. We still are rather small, so it’s possible we will learn ourselves what all these companies already know, hah.
- paulsutter 6y ago
  Which email client do you use or recommend for this?
  - seizethecheese 6y ago
    We use Front with a custom plugin. Fronts a bit buggy but very useful
- Sebb767 6y ago
  Let's hope the situation is better now ;) A factor might also be what kind of mails you send. If it's important stuff for a specific user it make sense to have a direct reply. If you set a reply address to a newsletter with millions of subscribers the situation probably looks a bit different, especially when said sign up happens without much user input (i.e. "click here to also receive our newsletter").
paulsutter 6y ago
Wow, for the low effort of writing an OOO filter, you can stand out as a company that cares about customers? We use a staff member’s email address on our outbound mail, so that people don’t even need to hesitate before responding.
- seizethecheese 6y ago
  Yeah my thought exactly. Also, going through the effort of filtering tickets also sounds worth it
- moksly 6y ago
  I think it depends a little on the context. I work in the public sector for instance, setting up a filter for our mail is something that, well, no one has successfully done yet. It’s not for lack of trying, we’ve had (and will continue to have) corporations with both big tech, startups and universities until we get something that’s actually better than outlook rules and a lot of manual sorting. The thing is, we cannot allow to let a single message land in the wrong inbox for more than 48hours. Obviously we don’t send “don’t reply e-mails” and we certainly never would from a domain that isn’t even ours, but filtering messages isn’t always easy. Hell, even with the inclusion of actual UUIDs for departments, and a national standard for sending secure business-to-business mail (post includes) that incorporates these standards, and throwing world leading AI science at it with Microsoft/Amazon/IBM behind it, we still employ two full time positions to handle the left overs and mistakes.
- ajuc 6y ago
  I've seen a big international bank internal network shut down because someone added a group mail of +- 10 000 people to a thread with jokes. Significant percent of these people were on holidays at the time so they responded automatically to each other with "out of office" messages and finally the network couldn't handle it. Emails are serious business ;)
  - eru 6y ago
    > I've seen a big international bank internal network shut down because someone added a group mail of +- 10 000 people to a thread with jokes. Those stories are always entertaining. But honestly, those organisations only have themselves to blame. Filtering and stopping these internal chains shouldn't be any harder than basic spam filtering. Mostly easier, because your filter inputs are not as adversarial.
HenryBemis 6y ago
I believe it's to make it a bit more difficult to get the replies. If someone REALLY wants to reply, they can spend the extra 1-2 minutes to go to the company's website and either write to them via their Contact Form(s), or find their "info/sales/privacy/etc@company.com email, and FW the original+comment to that new address.
- AstralStorm 6y ago
  Sure. Or they might quit using your services because they're not accessible. If they're really ticked off, give you bad reviews. Bonus that support mails are hidden behind ludicrous forms, terrible website design, images (to prevent spam) and so on.
srtjstjsj 6y ago
If it wasn't about blocking customer input, the email would have a Reply link to a website, or an email address to reply to.

alasdair_ 6y ago

I’m terribly sad bottomless.com isn’t a startup devoted to serving the vast market of users who only want to order the top half of a bikini set. Or perhaps particularly odd nudists.

zingermc 6y ago
I'm hopeful it's a startup that sells only the tops of muffins.
- r00fus 6y ago
  Top of the muffin to you!
seizethecheese 6y ago
For this reason, we were able to own the bottomless namespace pretty easily
082349872349872 6y ago
Or a cloud startup catering to computer scientists, offering Poset Reversal As A Service. > "Computer scientists commonly choose models which have bottoms, but prefer them topless."

dorkwood 6y ago

I agree. I personally feel that if you're either unwilling or unable to handle the responses you might receive, then you shouldn't send the email in the first place.

noizejoy 6y ago
I respectfully disagree with that position as a general rule. The wide variety of reasons for emails is more nuanced. Reality is more than all or nothing, 0 or 1.
- mola 6y ago
  Can you elaborate? I'm struggling to find a valid example of a one way mail stream from company to customers where all customers will never want to reply yet still want to get these mails.
  - jpindar 6y ago
    It's impossible to say that "all people will never want to do X", as there are some strange people out there. However, there are many emails that I want that I would never want to reply to. When I order something I like getting the emails saying 'your package has been shipped...", and they typically come from a donotreply address. I follow a number of repositories on Github, their notifications come from noreply.github.com. I also like knowing when there are new versions of various assets I've gotten from the Unity asset store, these notifications come from no-reply@unity3d.com. I am subscribed to the headlines from my local newspapers, one of them is delivered from noreply@patch.com. My utility company sends payment confirmation emails from noreply@unitil.com. I like knowing about the occasional blog post from authors I follow on Goodreads, these come from no-reply@mail.goodreads.com I like knowing when games on my Steam wishlist go on sale, these notifications come from noreply@steampowered.com In several of my past positions, a large part of my job was purchasing. As such, I needed the many industry newsletters I was subscribed to. In the manufacturing industry, these are one of the easiest ways to find out about new products. I do some work as a graphic designer, and I like getting the emails from various sites that sell - and often give away - assets. I could go on...