Responses from publications, too much to expect?

[sammyc]

Sitting here fuming somewhat more by the day at the non-response from 2 separate publications I've had reason to contact - 1 magazine, 1 newspaper. Perfectly civil & valid emails, not complaints, not compliments requiring no answer, not spam.

Is it too much to expect anything whatsoever back after a week and a re-send each? Yes you get used to bad communication from large bodies, but can these organisations not even muster a stock 'yr email has been received this is an automated response' thing so you at least know you haven't been instantaneously trashed?



Oh and on an unrelated-ish note - I've just had cause to tweet a response to someone. In detail, just to be helpful, nothing in it for me. I check back and a one-word answer hours after mine - by someone who has to have seen my answer - has been thanked as if it's gold-plated AND THIS SORT OF THING IS ALWAYS HAPPENING TO ME one way and another. apparently i inhabit some sort of walking blind spot. #fuming.

[Zak33]

I have had this total blank from Ryobi recently... a large company who allegedly try to compete with the like of Bosch.

6+ months later I still await even a recognition that I emailed them

[sammyc]

6 months?! I'd have burst a blood vessel by then. You can't get hold of them by ANY other means? :/

..or have you spoken to them, & they deny having had any email..

[Domestic_Ginger]

I was contacted by Santander 3 months after my complaint to say they were still looking into it. Nothing after that. We left them anyway and I'm happy to deter any future customers from even considering using them


Trick is to find someone's name. Then persue them. large email groups are great; FAO their names on the email subject. Open the email reminding them how mind numbingly slow they are!

[Saracen]

I guess it depends on what the mails were about.

I've regularly had mail/email about my articles passed to me by editors, with a view to comment. And I have always done so. BUT .... it'd depend on volume. In my case, volume has always been low enough that I don't mind replying, either personally or in print. But I'm paid to write copy, not answer letters/emails. One a week, no problem. 1000 a day .... well, it obviously would be a problem and I'm not going to read them all, never mind reply.

[sammyc]

If you did have 1,000 a day therefore, how would you know what was potentially important?

As you say, you are an individual. If a larger body very likely to receive public input is giving out a 'contact us' email address, I'm going to presume they intend to staff themselves sufficiently well to cope with the volume. I don't expect them to be selective to the tune of only replying to x amount of the input, leaving people having no idea what the deal is. Eg for basic 'I am writing with a suggestion' type stuff that they have no interest in taking up, I expect a quick 'thank you for your interest & we will not be doing such & such at this time but ta very much' type stock answer. (How long does that take, after all?) For 'there is a glaring & possibly libellous inaccuracy in your article' I expect a 'we are looking into this & will get back to you' etc etc, so on & so forth.

[Saracen]

It's likely I wouldn't know which was important, other than by which email address was used.

As for how long it takes, even if it's 30 seconds or a minute, it's still a numbers game at 1000 a day, or similar levels.

[sammyc]

It's likely I wouldn't know which was important, other than by which email address was used.

Exactly the problem, as I can quite see my email credentials are going to look as unimpressive as the other 99% of mop emails, but there's not much I can do about that really. As for it taking time, I realise these are instances where the postbags will be huge, that's why I'd be more than happy with an automated holding response. No-one wants to think they have been binned without further ado, & if firms are doing this, then as I say it's not my idea of acceptably equipping yourself. All a modern-day syndrome of course, we (almost) accept that not only will there be no hand-scribed letters from your bank manager, there will v likely be a big fat silence.

[jim]

My experience tells me that it's a numbers game. In an ideal world, people would typically like to reply but usually the volume just doesn't permit it.

Whilst yours might be a well-thought out message that should elicit a response, there's no way for the company to know that. Unless they pay someone to check each one, which would itself cost a lot of money.

OK, they could send an automated reply, but if you're not going to actually look at it, I think that's almost worse.

[sammyc]

I do see that, sadly, but it rather leaves you feeling that by expecting a response, you are being disgruntled of wherever because your correspondence has been overlooked.. 'as a loyal reader of your publication of many years' standing etc' - rather than just someone who expects a reply purely because, well, your input has been invited. It's like saying, 'here's our postal address, we'll bin the majority of your letters though' - & then making you feel naive that you don't realise that's so.

[Saracen]

I gotta say, it's hard to get a feel for this without narrowing down a bit more exactly what happened, even if without who the publication is, and the nature of the email mailbox used. I mean, mailing 'contact@greatpub.com' is a different thing from 'editorsname@greatpub.com'. Well, usually it is, anyway.

Not that either guarantees a response let alone a considered one.

Nor is it just publications.

I've emailed several MPs over various things during the last few years. Some, I didn't even get an acknowledgement. Others, a 'form' response that gave no indication of whether my message had even been read. And some engaged directly, constructively and repeatedly. An example of the latter would be Zak Goldsmith, even though he knew I wasn't a constituent of his.

[sammyc]

It's more of a 'do publications routinely ignore emails' question, I rarely contact any, so didn't really know if expecting a response was a long shot.

In one of the instances I am still working through the possible contact email addresses; I didn't want to go straight to contacting every possible option simultaneously, through no doubt misguided politeness, it seeming an even bigger waste of everyone's time to make different departments look at the same thing. As it seems unlikely someone is diligently looking over my question however I may well do as Domestic Ginger says & crank it up a notch.

One approx example would be writing to a large publication seeking the source information of a statement they've made online where there would be say a web queries address, a general enquiries, a corrections/complaints, and an online editor contact, that kind of setup, so it's a matter of where you start & how long you give one dept. As you say, I may be advised to move on to the 'editorsname@greatpub.com' approach.

[Saracen]

I don't think there's a one-size-fits-all answer to your query, not least due to volumes. After all, emailing the editor at the Telegraph is less likely to get a response than the editor at Cross Stitch Weekly, and your odds at the Lower Buntingworth Church Newsletter would probably be better still .... in the latter case, once the editor recovered from the heart attack caused by actually getting an email.

As for the 'source', well, an awful lot depends on what you mean. If a reporter quoted some official statistic, then finding out where it came from is perfectly feasible. But if it's an individual seeking to remain unnamed, your chances are zero. Journalists have gone to prison on numerous occasions for refusing to divulge sources in the face of contempt of court proceedings and a judges ire.

Personally, I'd think awfully hard, as a journalist, before writing the kind of article that might put me in that spot. It isn't and never has been my thing. But if it was that sort of confidential source, I probably wouldn't even tell my editor, never mind anyone else.

As I said, it's very hard to give any definitive answers to your query, because there's such a huge range of possibilities.

Consider this. About 25 years ago, I contacted a magazine editor (by phone) seeking freelance review work. He was cautiously interested, but said "pick a subject, a product, something you know, write 800 words and send it in. It's not for publication, but to see if you can write".

So I did. Then I waited. Nothing. So I rang, but he was "in a meeting'. I left a message. Zip. So I rang agajn. He was "on holiday". Then I got "out of the office", "at the dentist", etc, etc. I was trying to strike a balance between polite but keen follow-up, and being a pain-in-the rear pest.

So, after about a month of getting the run-around, I concluded he wasn't interested but didn't have the guts to tell me. So I stopped calling.

So imagine my shock, about a week later, when he called me, saying "Sorry, I've been busy as hell. That 800-word article on Product X? Can you expand it to 3,500 words by Friday week? If so, we'll use it". He did too .... as that month's cover feature.

He really had just been busy as hell.

[sammyc]

Nice success story.

'Source' was sloppy terminology. What I mean is, you have published an article by x person saying this thing, can you confirm what it refers to.

Um trying to come up with a good example. Let's say.. a regular columnist in the Lower Buntingworth Church Newsletter writes 'The Organist swore, using x words, during our recent choral concert.'
Say part of the concert was video'd and we the congregation have all seen it. The rest has been seen only by the newsletter editor. We have seen an incident that may well be the one referred to in the article, & the consensus there is that the organist has been misheard & is now being represented in the newsletter. Can you the editor confirm that the incident referred to by your columnist is the one we have seen. If it isn't, kindly ask your columnist to specify what alternative incident it was and check the footage accordingly. Either way they should be able if not willing to give a concrete answer.

Near enough if not as to particulars.

[Disturbedguy]

I guess it depends on what the mails were about.

I've regularly had mail/email about my articles passed to me by editors, with a view to comment. And I have always done so. BUT .... it'd depend on volume. In my case, volume has always been low enough that I don't mind replying, either personally or in print. But I'm paid to write copy, not answer letters/emails. One a week, no problem. 1000 a day .... well, it obviously would be a problem and I'm not going to read them all, never mind reply.

Sorry to take this off topic, but I've always wondered, what is it you write?

[Saracen]

It's a mix, these days, DG, but the story above referred to, would you believe .... computer software.