[Sigia-l] Forcing use of Web pages instead of email

[Leonard Will]

Is anyone else irritated by the increasing trend of organisations to not 
publish any proper email addresses but instead force users to 
communicate with them by filling in boxes on a Web page?

This may be convenient for the recipients, as they can connect the mail 
up to customer details (if the customer has logged in) or ensure that 
certain items of information are provided by including them as mandatory 
boxes.

As a user, though, I dislike such tactics, because

1. I cannot easily keep a copy of what I have said in my normal database 
of email messages, and it is therefore difficult to follow up with a 
thread of messages if an initial response is not received or does not 
completely resolve the issue. Sometimes companies make my outgoing 
messages available for me to read on their Web site, but not always, and 
they never tell me in advance whether they are going to do this.

2. The boxes provided for messages are always too small, usually being 
only 4 to 6 lines deep and about a quarter of a screen width. This makes 
it impossible to format a message tidily in paragraphs, or to quote 
previous messages properly. Even if they allow scrolling you cannot see 
or print the complete message you are sending. The worst ones allow you 
to write a whole coherent message and then when you try to send it come 
back with an error saying "Message too long; please limit your message 
to 255 characters". I then have to try various kinds of abbreviation 
until the length is small enough to be acceptable.

3. If the company sends responses to its own "secure mailbox" on its Web 
page, they seldom do me the courtesy of sending a proper email to me to 
let me know that a message is waiting. I have to keep logging in to see 
whether they have responded.

4. Organisations do not seem to have heard of secure email with 
electronic signatures using PGP or similar systems. They think that 
"secure Web pages" are the only way to send confidential information.

5. Companies send out advertising mail and service messages by ordinary 
email, but then say "Do not reply to this message as replies cannot be 
read; please use our Web page if you want to communicate with us". This 
strikes me as particularly rude; surely they can provide a valid "Reply 
to:" address in their emails, even if they are sent out by a mailing 
list robot.

I hope that other IAs here are aware of these problems, and I plead with 
them to consider the users when designing feedback mechanisms.

Leonard Will
-- 
Willpower Information       (Partners: Dr Leonard D Will, Sheena E Will)
Information Management Consultants              Tel: +44 (0)20 8372 0092
27 Calshot Way, Enfield, Middlesex EN2 7BQ, UK. Fax: +44 (0)870 051 7276
L.Will at Willpowerinfo.co.uk               Sheena.Will at Willpowerinfo.co.uk
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