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Pet peeves and credibility

Paul's Posts — 05 April 2012

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Pet peeves and credibility

I get a lot of SPAM in my inbox.  When I go to unsubscribe I sometimes get a notice that my request will be processed in 24 to 48 hours.  This implies there is some human being involved – a clerk perhaps sitting behind a desk with a big inbox overflowing because of all the requests.  This over worked employee is trying as hard as she can to get to my request but golly, it may take a couple of days.

Really?  Of course there’s no employee and my request is handled in a few milliseconds by a computer who places me on yet another list of people who aren’t interested in the one subject but how about if we try the next one?  Maybe then I’ll be interested.

Does that hurt the credibility of the product or service I got the email from?  Yes if I get another email from them and no if I don’t – and I probably won’t because the clever email marketer just used my unsubscribe request to move me from one list to another list so I don’t point the blame at the original unsubscribed vendor.  It’s what we call an endless loop in programming language.

The real problem I see is credibility and confidence in receiving any email at all – which hurts the medium.  There are certain emails I subscribe to and want to receive but I am ever so cautious as to which I sign up for – in case I get locked into an endless loop again.  That’s a shame because there’s a lot of good content waiting to be read.

I don’t have a solution, I am just whining.

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About Author

Paul McGowan

Paul McGowan is the CEO and co-founder of PS Audio Inc. a Boulder Colorado design and manufacturing company of high-end audio products and services. McGowan has been designing and building high-end products for nearly 40 years. Hobbies include skiing, music, hiking, artisan bread baking, kick boxing and cooking. He lives in Boulder Colorado with his wife Terri and his 4 sons.

(4) Readers Comments

  1. sbrinck

    April 5, 2012 at 6:11 am

    Spam liked it better when it represented a can of meat
    Your right I gave up on the unsubscribe a while back .Found if you continue eventually you will get back to the item you first unsubscribed?? Even worse are the individuals that forward you everything they percive as clever which may or may not be trouble is I can’t find the time or the motovation to read it all so I wind up with a inbox that’s full of unread material as well as a box load of spam.
    The joys of the information age ,when the most useful key on your computer is DELETE .

  2. Dan Schwartz

    April 5, 2012 at 6:52 am

    I unsubscribed from something last week, something I of course have no idea how I got stuck on to. When I got the you’ve-been-deleted notice, foolishly, I replied with a thank you.

    Oops.

    I got a notice saying “Since you have replied, we are interpreting in the only way possible – you are now resubscribed”. I replied again, “wrong”. This time it bounced back.

    But I find the same thing in the non-virutal world. Astronomy magazine has started sending me DVDs. Fantastic topics, which I will never have time to watch. And they want me to tell them if I don’t want more, AND to mail it back to them.

  3. wingsounds13

    April 6, 2012 at 1:51 pm

    Somehow I never trusted the spam ‘unsubscribe’ link and have never used it. From the beginning I considered it to simply be a confirmation of an active email account that can then be sold on as such.

  4. April 7, 2012 at 8:41 am

    Why not just create a dedicated email address (e.g. SPAM@PSAudio.com), which you use when signing up for things that may and will generate more spam.

    Then, it is very easy to look down a list of emails from the SPAM address – separate from your normal business and/or personal email address(es), which I assume you only give out, sparingly ;-D

    Cheers -

    Jeremy

    Kipnis Studio Standard (KSS) – Ultimate Home Theaters

    http://www.Kipnis-Studios.com

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