Every opportunity to communicate with customers is an opportunity to build volumes and profit. Maximising the communication opportunity is therefore a business imperative.

Or is it?

Many companies that migrate to email communication, leave their business sense behind, along with their sense of basic courtesy.

In the electronic age, a new rule has emerged for service-challenged companies:

To upset individual customers, simply ignore them; but to give offence to thousands, try email instead.

Email is not the best medium for customer communication. Many forms of rudeness are associated with it.

Most businesses know they should not send spam and should keep emails short. Some even appreciate that careless use of capitals and exclamation marks can irritate customers. Baffling abbreviations are also annoying.

However, an even greater irritation often goes unrecognised – the ‘No-Reply’ email.