posted on February 28, 2003 02:29:46 PM
Hi.
1)Email sign ups: I have a new customer who entered her name and address data plus her email address and is behaving as if she intended to opt in, but she is not listed as opting in. The first person who had trouble with finding no code yesterday returned a second time last night to try again and got a pop up window right there at the time allowing her to opt in, which she did. She got no other notices or codes from her initial attempt to sign up and if she hadn't tried again she would not have been opted in. Where are thesse codes when they present to the customer? Are they in a later email to the inbox of their email server, or is there something that is supposed to be apparent at the time of sign up?
There is also no information for me as to which lists they desire to be added to. This is especially important if the Customer Manager and Sales/Store Manager sign up links/data are not integrated in an ongoing fashion. On my customer data sheet there are possibilities and spaces designatd for all kinds of info, including check boxes to indicate which lists they want to receive (apparently my default settings for mailing lists I've set up so far)--do they get to see those and check them or is that just there for my info.? What exactly do these folks have available to them when they sign up? How do I know what list(s) they are signing up for?
2) Emails. Does this program as an email service work the same as any email service? For instance, can I add color, bold/underline/italics to text and active links to these emails as text documents? (And if so, how do I do that) If AW doesn't have these features, would it work if I copied and pasted the content composed in my non AW email service or word processor, or would it just come out black and white "rudamentary computer printout style" anyway when it was sent?
This program is dynamite if all the responses are to be automated via templates and no one cares what the output looks like, but very cumbersome and rudamentary for other kinds of email for me so far. By altering our primary email addresses at all the major sites, AW has essentially demanded that to use this program all our email services be exclusively replaced by those provided by AW's CM, and the level of intuitive use ability, integration and importation CM does not seem to be anywhere close to what is needed yet, even in AW site related matters. The idea that the entire process can be turn key automated is not very realistic for what customer communication often requires (especially for auctions) even when "personal touch" factors are dismissed, and the tutorials are designed to acquaint us with the potential features, but not how to use them or how they work (the tutorial example screens cannot even be clearly read).
What would you suggest is the best way for us to go about all this? I am currently reduced to emailiing my customers and friends asking what my emails look like and what is going on when they interact with the site because I have nothing at this end to go on after they are done. Even to provide appropriate communication back to them I have to know what they intended when they signed up. Help!
posted on February 28, 2003 04:11:18 PM
Hi Passedtothepresent,
1. Regarding email sign ups -- when someone signs up through "Join My Mailing List", they are sent a confirmation code to their email. It is automatically generated and sent to the customer. The email will give them a URL to go to along with a code to enter. As soon as they do that, they should show up in your customer list with a check to the left of their name, signifying that they are an opt in customer.
Once they get in your list it is up to you what you want to do with them -- you can add them to as many of your mailing lists as you want to.
It is possible that your customers, when clicking on the link in the email, thought that the confirmation was complete since the confirmation number appears in the box after you click. They still need to click the Submit button in order to complete the confirmation.
2. Regarding email features -- in Customer Manager preferences, you may select whether you want to have emails go out in text format or in HTML. If you choose to have them go out in HTML you can change the color, bold text, etc. If you have any trouble with the HTML format please let us know.
Thank you for the feedback you have provided. I will pass this thread along to the developers of the product for review. Unfortunately, at this time, Customer Manager is not designed to interface with outside email addresses so you will need to use your vendio.com address with it. Let us know if we did not cover all of your questions.
Regards,
Sonya
[ edited by SonyaAW on Feb 28, 2003 04:47 PM ]
posted on March 2, 2003 07:11:47 AM
passedtothepresent asks about HTML & "cutting & pasting" text. "Cut & Paste" is not allowed in the compose email box when HTML coding is visible - when the "edit HTML" box is checked. So We can cut & paste plain text but not HTML coding.
Also, creating response templates using HTML is very troublesome. The only way to do it is to manually type in all of the code. I tried to create a template in my "compose mail" box & copy & paste it to the "create template" box. however HTML cannot be copied from the "compose email" box.
I then tried to compose it in another html editor, then cut & paste to the template creator, which worked ok, except that the code was broken up when pasted to the template creator so the actual response template was "messed up" This could only be fixed "MANUALLY."
Plus, I am still having problems with the create mail box HTML causing windows explorer to error & close losing all data. Am I the only one with this problem?
Please know that I am not just complaining. I like this new feature. Like any new feature it takes some getting used to.
