‘Ping-Pong!’ That oh-so-familiar sound plays to tell me that an email has arrived - I’m sure I'm not the only one who still gets a small thrill from the feeling that someone has taken the trouble to write to me. Ooh, it’s from one of my friends asking whether I’d like to go out for a meal tonight. I hit reply and the conversation begins.

A moment or two later and I get another email from my favourite retailer. They’ve got some offers going, but actually their message reminds me that I haven’t told them that I’ve changed my email address and the old one is about to stop working. I hit reply and fire off a quick email. Job done.

Except it isn’t. A few minutes later I get a bounced message notification: "The email address newsletters@my_favourite_retailer.com does not accept incoming mail". And so my goat is well and truly got. And don’t even get me started on those organisations who mail with the email address This e-mail address is being protected from spam bots, you need JavaScript enabled to view it

Why do I have to dig through the email myself to find the correct email address – or even worse, go to their Web site and fill out a complicated contact form? It’s an email isn’t it? Why can’t I just reply like I can to every other email I receive? Is the company not interested in hearing from me? It feels like they slammed the phone down on my call – how rude!

"OK, Mr. Smart Alec.", says the email marketing manager, "If I use a real email address, then I'll end up with thousands of out-of-office replies and a whole load of spam in my inbox. How do I dig out the emails that I care about?"

Well, here are some of the things we’ve suggested to organisations over here on this side of the pond:

• Set up a rule in your email client to put all the messages into a folder. Then sort by subject line and dig out everything that starts with "Re:". Any real reply is generally going to look like that so it’s a good place to start.
  


• Watch for particular phrases – things like ‘change of address’ are particularly relevant. Also, keep an eye out for things like spam challenges – where customers set up a filter which sends an email back asking for verification that the sender is real.
  


• Think about whether this is something you could outsource as a project to a team of people. Depending on your volume, it probably only requires 2 or 3 hours of time for each mailing.  There are companies who specialise in filtering incoming mail like this – sorting out the important ones from the dross, and sending them on to the right customer services address, for instance. And, if you consider how valuable it can be to keep track of a customer rather than lose them when they can't reply to your email, the sums tend to add up quickly.

We’ve got a fantastic list here of the strangest responses our customers have ever received to their emails - tell us yours, I’d love to add them to the list!

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Kieran Cooper is the General Manager of Lyris UK.  After a degree in music, Kieran began his career as a marketing manager for some of the most prestigious UK arts organisations including the Aldeburgh Festival and Royal Philharmonic Orchestra where he led the way in the use of CRM data for direct marketing, in the days before the Internet was invented. After a spell running his own management consultancy, he joined Lyris UK to work alongside Andrew Robinson acting as Lyris' UK presence. These days his job involves everything from sales and account management to implementation projects and support for the 250 Lyris customers in the UK and Europe.

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