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Lessons learned from onboarding emails with no HTML styling

blog.palabra.io

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Re: Lessons learned from onboarding emails with no HTML styling

#161

Post by wenc »

chidg wrote: post #159
patmorgan23 wrote: post #157

Earlier quoted context omitted.

When traveling in a foreign country its not uncommon to invent a name on the local language to make interacting with locals easier.

Even when not traveling, for people with 'unusual' names it's not uncommon to use a more easily recognisable 'cafe name' to get around this issue.

Yes, many people with such names have so-called "Starbucks" names, and some are quite creative and funny -- I mean, there are people who use "Barack Hussein" as their Starbucks name. Ordinary names like Bob or Sue are common too.

I understand why Starbucks does it. It's part of their corporate culture and marketing. I've no strong aversion to it -- as I said I'm used to it now and it is what it is. But I just wanted to highlight some of the downsides for people with unusual names, even though as you say it's no big deal to find a workaround.

And there exist more universal systems that aren't dependent on a barista's ability to spell or pronounce an arbitrary name, and that doesn't require the customer to reveal or invent a name.

p.s. English names are not exempt from this. Imagine going to a non-English-speaking country and having a name like Cecil or Xavier (which Americans pronounce Ex-zavier).

Re: Lessons learned from onboarding emails with no HTML styling

#162

Post by a1369209993 »

yencabulator wrote: post #148
another-dave wrote: post #138

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Names work fine if your name is easily pronounced. Otherwise you end up making up a name just for Starbucks which takes away from their personalisation thing

Taking away a corporation's personalisation thing sounds like a good idea.

It's definitely a good idea, but it's not clear why the corporation would want that.

Re: Lessons learned from onboarding emails with no HTML styling

#163

Post by noodlesUK »

wenc wrote: post #160
patmorgan23 wrote: post #157

Earlier quoted context omitted.

When traveling in a foreign country its not uncommon to invent a name on the local language to make interacting with locals easier.

I'm not sure that it is that common. I mean, wouldn't it seem strange to take on the moniker of Takeshi while travelling in Japan, or Juan in Mexico, or Alexei in Moscow just to be able to order at Starbucks? p.s. I should add the caveat that Starbucks baristas in Japan do not ask for names. It's culturally inappropriate there so Starbucks doesn't implement their names policy in Japan.

I mean, like many people on this board, I have a “Starbucks name” that I use because my real name is hard to pronounce. If I moved to a non-English speaking country, I’d probably adopt a local “Starbucks name”

Re: Lessons learned from onboarding emails with no HTML styling

#164

Post by noodlesUK »

chidg wrote: post #159
patmorgan23 wrote: post #157

Earlier quoted context omitted.

When traveling in a foreign country its not uncommon to invent a name on the local language to make interacting with locals easier.

Even when not traveling, for people with 'unusual' names it's not uncommon to use a more easily recognisable 'cafe name' to get around this issue.

I do this, but I have certainly encountered some awkwardness if I transition into being a “regular”, and the baristas start to make small talk...

Re: Lessons learned from onboarding emails with no HTML styling

#165

Post by scoutt »

bonoboTP wrote: post #54

I really hate these cheesy lines that are "excellent" according to the article, like: - "You had enough fluff marketing content and so did we. So the absofreakinlutely BEST thing you could do right now..." - "Writing this from my couch at home, hoping to find you safe and well at yours. It's been a busy summer! I wanted to share more about out 2.9 release..." No, just no. Leave me alone, we aren't friends, you did no…

I think these kind of lines only resonates within marketing people. At the end of the day, they are trying to sell palabra, that should be another platform for white-hat spamming everybody could live without; for sending the kind of emails that (for a developer) has a time-to-live in the inbox equal to the time it takes to drag the mouse to the delete button.

Re: Lessons learned from onboarding emails with no HTML styling

#166

Post by awongh »

bonoboTP wrote: post #54

I really hate these cheesy lines that are "excellent" according to the article, like: - "You had enough fluff marketing content and so did we. So the absofreakinlutely BEST thing you could do right now..." - "Writing this from my couch at home, hoping to find you safe and well at yours. It's been a busy summer! I wanted to share more about out 2.9 release..." No, just no. Leave me alone, we aren't friends, you did no…

I think the tone of your communications has to hit a middle ground because I also have a sort of visceral reaction to emails that are too formal:

Dear sir, According to your previous request please refer to the following link to access your download.

Our team thanks you for your kind attention.

Yours warmly, blah blah blah

Somewhere in the (subjective) middle is an email that reads like you know i am a non-litigious human but not your best buddy.

Re: Lessons learned from onboarding emails with no HTML styling

#167

Post by dspillett »

wenc wrote: post #160
patmorgan23 wrote: post #157

Earlier quoted context omitted.

When traveling in a foreign country its not uncommon to invent a name on the local language to make interacting with locals easier.

I'm not sure that it is that common. I mean, wouldn't it seem strange to take on the moniker of Takeshi while travelling in Japan, or Juan in Mexico, or Alexei in Moscow just to be able to order at Starbucks? p.s. I should add the caveat that Starbucks baristas in Japan do not ask for names. It's culturally inappropriate there so Starbucks doesn't implement their names policy in Japan.

> I'm not sure that it is that common

Anecdotal evidence to the contrary: I'm in the UK and have known a few people from parts of Africa over the years, they've all had made up simple short names because they tired of people but being able to deal with their real names (either not being able to pronounce it, or making a big thing if it sounding strange). And it wasn't just a short nick-name based on their name that they use generally: their friends from the region would call them something different. Likewise a polish fellow in one of my current circles does the same (though I don't know any of his wider social network so don't know if this simpler name is used more generally).

It may be a regional thing (partly because some languages use sounds like "clicks" that we don't, so have difficulty replicating): I've encountered numerous people from the middle & far East and they haven't done this.

Re: Lessons learned from onboarding emails with no HTML styling

#168

Post by dspillett »

sp332 wrote: post #2

Good points in here, but I disagree about using a person's name as the From address. If I'm getting an email from Notion, I want it to show up as "From: Notion" in my inbox, not "From: Ivan". I have several companies that do this and I never know who the email is from, which adds some cognitive friction I don't need when triaging my inbox. You can put your name in the subject line if you want.

This for be too: a personal name that I don't recognise is not unlikely to get your message discussed and deleted as junk if I'm scanning my mail in a rush. That and emoji in the subject line (which I assume is designed to make you stand out, but to me grates more then ALL CAPS).

But I'm a grumpy old techie, how I see such things is going to differ to the general populous, so maybe a technique that puts me off gets more positive attention from more then enough others that losing me is worth it.

Re: Lessons learned from onboarding emails with no HTML styling

#169

Post by diarrhea »

mottosso wrote: post #71
diarrhea wrote: post #50

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In an ideal world, I would like to write plain Markdown and send an email off like that, with conversion to HTML happening in the background. A suitable Thunderbird addon for this [1] seems abandoned. Formatting HTML is a real struggle for me in Thunderbird's WYSIWYG editor. On the other hand, using plain-text lacks in readability (lists, short links instead of full URLs, headers, quotes, ...). [1]: https://addons.th…

I've been using "Markdown Here" for the past few years and live in this ideal world already. It's great, you should come visit. :)

The link in my comment is to "Markdown Here" as a Thunderbird addon, but it is not compatible with recent Thunderbirds.

Re: Lessons learned from onboarding emails with no HTML styling

#170

Post by learnstats2 »

zingermc wrote: post #152
learnstats2 wrote: post #150

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes, it does. It is widely thought to be true and certainly matches my experience at statistical significance.

Keep in mind the adage "you get what you measure". If you optimize for CTR, you are not necessarily optimizing for user satisfaction/loyalty. Case in point: Netflix's auto-play feature used to drive me bonkers, so much that I would try other streaming services first. How could they think this feature was a good idea? The only plausible explanation I've heard is that they were optimizing for user engagement. Users cli…

You are critiquing your own question, which I was answering directly.

What I said also applies to any other metric, including (for example) income generation.

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