Introductions

Hello Blogger Community. Don Hoyt here. Long time blog reader, first time blogger. I’m here to talk about VisNetic MailFlow, email customer service, and other ramblings from the perspective of a long time MailFlow user, and someone who’s worked closely with the MailFlow development and marketing teams over the years. I’d also like to delve into day to day life with MailFlow as someone using MailFlow each day to communicate with clients and gather information, to examine practical applications of MailFlow and why it’s just so darned handy.

First, a little bit about myself and what I do. My official title is Marketing and Sales Representative with Deerfield.com. So, when you send an email or call in to Deerfield.com , and ask for additional product information, can MailFlow do this or that, questions on pricing, licensing, etc., I’m your man. But, in addition to marketing and selling VisNetic MailFlow, I’m also a client, and quite possibly, its biggest fan.

I was introduced to email management software when I began working at Deerfield.com in the spring of 2000. At that time, VisNetic MailFlow was just a gleam in our developers’ eyes… We used an email management application called Adante (no longer in development).

My first impressions of email management software were:

1) It was an easy, and logical way for me to segregate my communications between customers/channel partners and internal staff. I continued to use Outlook for my internal communications with Deerfield staff, appointments, and calendar info, but all customer correspondence was routed through our email management application.
2) It allowed our sales staff and myself to respond concurrently to emails in one inbox as a team – which promoted team work and helped us quickly answer all inbound emails.
3) Traditional email clients that I had used up till then could not have sufficiently addressed the needs of a company like ours, that was receiving hundreds of emails a day, and had double digit staff members all answering or referring to customer emails – we needed a tool that was specifically designed for email customer service.

While Adante gave us the fundamental functionality we were looking for (automated message routing, email queues, customer history, etc.), we felt that it was lacking features that we, and businesses like us, would benefit from on a daily basis, and the interface and usability were a bit clunky. So, with a tremendous amount of customer email correspondence and a work force begging for a solution that better fit their needs, we did what any good electronic software distributor with a knowledgeable and professional development staff would do: Toga party! But after the party, and a few dozen pots of coffee, we decided to create our own solution based on our experiences and feedback from our channel partners and end users. And hence, VisNetic MailFlow was born.


At Deerfield.com, we distribute 16 different products, ranging from dynamic dns to IP PBX’s, and everything in between. VisNetic MailFlow is a product that is near and dear to our hearts due to the fact that soooo many companies would benefit tremendously from MailFlow, but they continue to carry on with their traditional, isolated mail clients, oblivious to the fact that customer emails are being answered improperly or are going unanswered altogether. So we continue to fight the good fight, improving email customer service one business at a time.