Sunday, September 27, 2015

One Simple Customer Service Fix

Have you ever noticed that e-commerce receipts and online reservations tend to come from an email address in the form of "noreply@domain.com", followed by a message at the bottom of the email reminding you not to reply to that email? There's such an easy fix to this that it's embarrassing the customer service industry hasn't caught on.

Here's one that I got from Enterprise Car Share, a ZipCar competitor (red highlights mine; personal information removed):
from: Enterprise CarShare <noreply@enterprisecarshare.com>
subject: Enterprise CarShare - NEW Reservation Confirmation 
NEW Reservation Confirmation
Your reservation details as of 10:43pm Thursday, September 24, 2015:
Vehicle:
[car details]

Start:
[start time and date]

End:
[end time and date]

Total Time:
7 hour(s)
Reservation ID:
[reservation ID]
... 
Reservation Estimate 
Time:   $105.00
Distance:   $0.00  Taxes:    $20.87
Estimated Additional Fees:   $0.00 Total:   $125.87
... 
We are committed to exceeding your expectations.  If there is anything we can do to make your experience better, please call us at 877-411-6468 or email us at info@enterprisecarshare.com and let us know how we can help. 

Please DO NOT REPLY TO THIS EMAIL. For problems or emergencies with your reservation, call our 24-hr vehicle and roadside assistance line at 877-411-6468.
Nonetheless I am sure that many people just hit reply and send their customer service inquiry into a black hole, because most people don't read to the bottom of very long emails with a lot of extraneous information. This experience never turns out well. And yet it is so easily solvable:
Right there, on the very line above where Enterprise shouts at me DO NOT REPLY TO THIS EMAIL, they give the address to which I should send write for customer service.

To fix this: send the email from the customer service address. Or change the reply-to address to the customer service email. Either way, don't make me as the customer have to figure out that I need to copy-paste a new address to the To field.



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