“I spent all day in my email box and it was awesome!” said no one, ever!

Email is a fantastic tool for communication when done right, but it has the tendency to grow into a giant time-sucking monster when left unchecked. Like other tasks associated with growing and maintaining momentum in business, taking the time to organize is worth the set up time in the long run.

Fact: using only one email address for all correspondence can create a cluttered, distracting inbox.

Wingmen Solution: Assign specific topics to different email boxes. Spending far less time thinking about and maneuvering emails probably sounds like success to you too. In practice, you’ll see that establishing specific email addresses is an efficient way to streamline your operations, be more effective with your time, and provide clear communications as you scale your business. Additionally, utilizing separate email boxes may help to reveal valuable data in real time.

Specific addresses can:

1. Cut down on spam.
   The volume of spam attracted by personalized, public addresses grows daily, and keeping it out of individual email accounts is huge when scaled up to companies with multiple employees
2. Be a sales tool.
   For businesses with few employees – or who area single proprietor – department specific addresses can help your business seem larger to potential customers and partners, giving you immediate credibility. For example, using sales@, support@, accounting@, and marketing@ can give the impression of a large organization with dedicated staff serving each department. When forwarded to teams of people, each “inbox” will have someone checking in on it, providing consistency when people are out of the office.
3. Make prospects feel important.
   Ever received an email from “Julia” responding to a form submission, and reply to it only to receive an email from “Robert”? It makes it appear as if there are a team of people at the ready to help you understand whatever you’re on the verge of buying. Sprinkle in some language about how “we were discussing your company,” and all of a sudden it feels as if you are purchasing something from a company that cares intensely about you. While some companies have a round-robin system set up where inbound emails are received by all members of a larger department, it can also be one or two people who are trained to answer 80% of the questions.
4. Make time trackable by “task” or “department.” 
   Tackling projects by email address allows you to accurately assess how much time each takes you. Paying attention to where these departmental emails are routed can also provide valuable insight into your staffing needs, where your operations are bottlenecking, and even what to add/delete from your FAQs. You can even red-flag production issues by using  addresses like returns@ or refunds@. The possibilities are incredible, just don’t overdo it with so many addresses that they become cumbersome.

BEST PRACTICES

1. Keep the department names short, logical, and easy to spell.
   Excessively creative naming can lead to unnecessary confusion. Stick with common addresses like “support@” and “sales@”.
2. Respond to inquiries from an individualized email address.
   This practice not only creates a human connection, it is another chance to increase credibility for the company (see #3 above). Research has shown customers prefer coordinating with a real person. (NOTE: If the departmental account must be used for replies, make sure your company is in the name, such as “[Your Business] customer service”.)
3. Avoid the overused, spam-inducing “info@.”
   Replies from Info@ are typically filtered out automatically because of the inclination of true spam bots to fill inboxes worldwide. Yuck! The Wingmen at MaverickApp find far better results with “hello@” or “questions@”.
4. Use a tool like MaverickApp to enhance automation.
   Setting up multiple email addresses and mailing from each of them independently can be challenging. Using a tool like MaverickApp to reach out to prospects or current customers from these email addresses over a period of time is much simpler.

Don’t worry, setting up business email accounts is usually quite simple, and most email clients do not limit how many you can have. Using multiple email addresses and a department-based system may seem more complicated than the “simple” method of only one, but it can actually speed up your communications, improve both the customer and employee experience and provide valuable insights as you grow your business.

Whether you’re sending outbound cold emails with MaverickApp or you’re warmly welcoming a new customer into your organization, we wish you the best of luck!