Ask HN: What's the best "Contact Us" email address for a startup?

[magsafe]

Some choices:

[email protected], [email protected], [email protected], [email protected], [email protected]

Anything else? I'd like it to be friendly, informal and generic enough for any question a customer might have.

[agwa]

I prefer [e-mail] because I've noticed that sometimes in gmail and other mail clients the email address is rendered as just the local part (the part before the @ sign), and I want customers to see something meaningful instead of just "hello" or "contact".

[corin_]

If you are sending mails correctly (i.e. with a name not just an email address) then that isn't an issue.

  From: Company Name <[email protected]>

vs.

  From: [email protected]

[skram]

Depending on your structure and size, I'd suggest just doing a catch-all so any of these will work and so emails to the wrong email address ([email protected]) will get to the general inbox.

That being said, I think hello@ or team@ are most friendly and general enough. Help@ and support@ seem to not welcome sales or pre-sales inquiries.

[Aaronn]

Yeah Hi or Hello are defiantly the best if you want to be friendly.

[dmckeon]

In theory, RFC 2142 answers this:

    http://tools.ietf.org/html/rfc2142

but in practice, any of the addresses listed there will be the targets of a lot of spam - so I would avoid using those as live working addressses.

You could perhaps put a powerful spam filter in front of sales@ and info@ and see if any pearls pass through it - if anyone at your company can spare the time for that - up to you.

Otherwise, the exact addresses you use are less important, as long as Joe Random customer/vendor/outsider can understand which address (or contact form) to use.

If your company is in an established niche, you might follow any patterns that exist in that niche - check your own address book for ideas.

[poulsbohemian]

Personally I use "[email protected]" because it is just so darn friendly ;-)

[magsafe]

It has a bit of a southern connotation that might be awkward for urban customers.

[blendergasket]

As an urbanite myself I find this quite endearing.

[pliptvo]

As a non-American I find this rather grating.

[codegeek]

I would divide it up by business functions. "Contact", "team" etc are very generic. For example, both an exisiting customer and a prospective customer could tehcnically be "contacting" you. But you want to differentiate there. I would go for something like:

    Sales: [email protected]

    Customer Support: [email protected]

    Press release/inquiry: [email protected]

    Partners/vendors etc: [email protected]

    Anything else: [email protected] (This can be creative as you like)

[agwa]

I think such a scheme is customer-unfriendly, especially for a small company where there isn't a compelling organizational need to have separate email addresses. For example, if an existing customer wants to both place a new order and get customer support, should they be expected to send two emails, one to sales and another to support? Also, I've noticed that once a customer gets a company's email address in their address book, that's the only email address they ever use. I've seen this first hand with customers emailing the support address to place new orders.

[magsafe]

I posted this question precisely to avoid having too many aliases. I'd like the equivalent of "dialing 0" from your hotel room phone, and getting redirected by the front desk based on your request.

[ecesena]

[partially related] Do you reply as, e.g., [email protected], or from you personal email [email protected]? Do you use a real or fake person to address customer support queries?

[Aaronn]

Maybe [email protected]?

[somethingcoolio]

Personally I would go with: [email protected] Because as JacobH stated, "contact" feels to formal.

Everything else has all ready been recommended, ie: [email protected] for CUSTOMER support. [email protected] for dealing with vultures. [email protected] for partners.

I'd make my catch-all something like "[email protected]"

[hobo_mark]

How about ask@domain? It clearly states that you're open to answer any kind of question from customers and/or partners, and it's neither too formal (like sales@, support@, accounting@) nor hipster-casual (say, hello@, howdy@, yourfriends@ and so on).

Then you might also want to use team@domain for announcements but that's it.

[MichaelTieso]

Keep it as simple as possible. One email address for everything and expand as time goes on. I usually do contact@.

[jtheory]

The problem with this is that as you expand, most of your customers will not expand with you.

So they may start using contact@ to communicate directly with the founding team; two years later they will use contact@ and get the intern who is supposed to redirect email (and may not do a great job of it).

If you start out with the 4 or 5 standard options (at least splitting tech support from sales), they may initially all be mailing lists that go to all founders -- then you can direct them appropriately later as you specialize... and your clients/customers won't need to change anything.

[tansey]

If you really just want one email for everything, go with [email protected]. All the other choices imply a purpose for the email (e.g., first contact or help with a problem).

[simantel]

Yeah, I agree about using just one email. I like Medium's approach of using [email protected].

[j45]

You could pick one, publish it, and set an alias for all the other ones to go there and not fret about it much more. I've used help@ for a long time.

[mustafab]

We are using 42@ for our contact address. It's fun & short, it's meaningful, and for sure it's for every (ultimate) question :)

[27182818284]

I prefer [email protected],

but when responding I always respond

first name, [email protected]

[kurtle]

I always assume I can reach someone at [email protected]. That's the only one I assume.

[ChikkaChiChi]

general inquiries usually go to info@. if you are that concerned, use actionable verbs.

we're past the point where setting up email us trivial, so endlessly splitting up your email addresses is more self serving than customer centric.

PS: contact forms are way more important.

[gothep]

I Love Mediums: yourfriends @ medium.com. Feels just a tiny bit more personal.

[poulsbohemian]

nice!

[KC8ZKF]

Pick an easy to spell first name e.g. [email protected]

[tobykier]

[email protected]

most of the time people are mailing you unsolicited it's because there's something they want to know.

[tobykier]

[email protected]

most of the time people are mailing you unsolicited it's because there's something they want to know

[JacobH]

support - if you are helping customers

team - if you want to get to know the team or make a general inquiry

contact - feels kind of too formal

Just my take on it.