Today, I saw a comment from a team rep come over that said this:
Our coach, John Smith has reached out to the tournament several times via e-mail in regards to us not receiving a confirmation on our acceptance into the tournament. It was only after checking the status on line that we saw that we’ve been accepted. Due to lack of follow up on your part and lack of confirmation for the tournament we are going to pull out and will be stopping payment on our check.
Got me wondering how many times the tournament sent an email to coach Smith (not his real name, of course) that went to his junk folder or he didn’t bother replying to. So, I looked it up. Four messages were sent to him, without a reply back.
Our advice: If a coach does not answer an email, CALL HIM! And, you may want to advise your teams that you will be sending emails and that if they do not hear from you within a reasonable time, CALL YOU! Email is rapidly becoming an obsolete communication tool as more and more ISPs are deciding for their customer what is and what is not spam.
And, make sure your subject lines are not spammy. A subject line like You’re Accepted!!! will probably hit the junk folder, whereas a subject line like Your team has been accepted to the 2008 Major Classic will make it all the way to it’s destination inbox. Be specific and stay away from punctuation like ? and !!!!
You may also wish to drop postcards in the mail with the team acceptance, just in case emails are not getting through. While it may seem counter-intuitive for a web site to advocate for the USPS, it is the end product, not the tools, that are the important thing.
But, please, the goal is not to point fingers around in a circle about who didn’t answer their emails. The goal is to communicate, whether that is by phone, postcard or email.