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Warning: Over-automating customer emails backfired on me hard
Last month I set up 15 auto-reply sequences for my small parts supply shop here in Wichita. Everyone online says you gotta automate everything to scale up. But after three days I got 8 angry replies from customers saying my emails sounded like a robot. One guy named Mark wrote back "Are you even real?" I ignored him and kept the system running. Two weeks later my repeat orders dropped by 30 percent. I turned off half the automations and wrote personal follow-ups instead. Has anyone else seen automation hurt their actual sales numbers?
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charlie2691mo ago
Oh man, the "Are you even real?" part hit me right in the gut because I had the exact same thing happen with my shop. I pared it down to just 3 simple sequences for order confirmations and shipping updates only, then hand-typed everything else - my repeat business actually went back up within a week.
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the_andrew29d ago
Yeah, you nailed it. @charlie269, I did basically the same thing with my own business a couple years back. People get so used to robotic messages that when they actually hear from a person it stands out. I stripped out every automated response except payment confirmations and tracking numbers. Everything else I type out myself, even if it's just a short note. The difference in how people treat you afterwards is night and day.
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