If you’ve followed my writing for very long, you know I’m not a big fan of automated emails. There are cases where they are done correctly and can be valuable, but the most common implementation seems to be “cool, let’s blast stuff out!”.
If you’re going to automate, I suggest two main rules:
- Send it from a real address, not from “noreply”.
- When someone responds, engage with them like a human.
It seems pretty easy, yes?
A few years back I shared the story for the bizarre marketing automation when I was looking to trade my car at Mountain View Ford, and now I’m back with a similar tale of woe. This time I was looking at lease rates on a Mustang Mach-E with Wade Ford, and the email automation and chaos was something to see. Here’s a quick look at what happened:
Note that the Mountain View story above was from five years ago. Surely dealerships have improved their technology since then, right? I guess not.
Again, this is very simple. I can make a case for some light automation in these kinds of situations, but the degree to which these salespeople ignore my actual requests for information is stunning.
As I mention in the video, I fear that AI is going to make this even worse. I still consider email to be the perfect vehicle (ha!) for working on a deal for a car, as the nature of asynchronous communication means that both parties can take some time to formulate offers and responses, but you can still move forward fairly quickly. It seems I’m in the minority here, but that doesn’t excuse the kind of sloppiness shown in that video.
If you want to run some automations with your company, they can be a great way to provide value — just make sure to keep some humans in the loop as well.
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