No-Reply No No

It never ceases to amaze me how marketers think it's acceptable to use "no-reply" in either a From: line or as part of the Reply-to: address. The obvious issue is that if you look at email marketing as a true communication channel between the sender and the recipient, this is quite a rude stance to take. These days it's so hard to get people to pay attention to the offers and information they get through email anyway, so it seems crazy that a sender wouldn't want to openly accept return feedback.

The other issue that may not jump out to some marketers is that there are non-standards compliant corporate (and other) email systems that will route replies and/or bounces to the From: and not the Reply-to: address. As such, you're not only potentially alienating subscribers by (in their minds) not caring about what they think, but you could also be taking a deliverability hit because some bounces will not be handled properly.

If you are a marketer that would like to be accepting feedback but are not currently using technology sophisticated enough to enable this, there are vendors offering solutions to consider. For example, you might take a look at a system like ResponseMaster from Extreme Messaging (http://www.extreme-messaging.com). You can also find coding pros via sites like Elance.com to develop a custom solution on a project or hourly basis.

With apologies to Gandhi, your customer wants you to be the change they wish to see in how they interact with your company or organization. Therefore, make a commitment now to increase customer loyalty by accepting their feedback.