My sister-in-law is due for some very specialized heart surgery. She has to travel from Hawaii to Los Angeles for the procedure.

For several weeks she was emailing the surgeon’s office, trying to confirm the day and time of her procedure, pre-op appointments, preparatory instructions and the like. Irritatingly, the surgeon’s office never replied.

Finally, out of desperation, my sister-in-law called the surgeon’s office and was transferred to the Patient Contact Coordinator. When she told the Coordinator that she’d been emailing for weeks but had received no answer, the coordinator replied, “Oh, your emails went to the SPAM folder and were deleted. If you’re not in my Contacts List, emails are automatically listed as SPAM and deleted.”

“So, can I confirm my appointments and get my pre-op information?” asked sister-in-law.

“Sure. Just send me an email,” replied Patient Contact Coordinator.

Pause. Wait. Wait for it.

“Soooooo, do you want my email address to add to your Contacts List?” finally inquired exasperated sister-in-law.

“Huh?” responded the quick-on-the-uptake Coordinator.

“So that the email you just asked me to send you doesn’t get automatically sent to SPAM and deleted ….. again?”

“Uh … Oh … Yeah, I guess.”

To quote a sage, contemporary American icon: “D’oh!”

How does this surgeon ever stay in business if they never get new patients because new patient emails are summarily deleted because they are not in the Coordinator’s current patient Contacts List?

This office, or at least this Patient Contact Coordinator, could benefit from the advanced email management features of Email Center Pro.

Steve Lange
Senior Editor (Ret.)
Palo Alto Software

Tags: communications, customer contact, email, Email Center Pro, failure, office coordination
Posted on January 20th, 2010 | No Comments »

If the health of our planet is of interest to you, then the next two weeks are as important as any in history, as told by Connie Hedegaard.

The incoming president of COP15, the United Nation’s conference on climate change, does not mince words about the crucial nature of this global gathering. In an article on the conference’s website, she said that if the world fails to deliver a political agreement at the conference, which runs from Dec. 7-18 in Copenhagen, Denmark, it will be “the whole global democratic system not being able to deliver results in one of the defining challenges of our century.”

Bringing human reform to such a tenuous facet of life may be the task with which the political officials in attendance are charged, but pushing that agenda down through the layers of everyday human life is quite another matter.

And this is a matter in which Email Center Pro is about to get intimately involved. Palo Alto Software’s collaborative email platform will take center stage at the conference, helping to eliminate the barriers that once existed between the people with deep knowledge about climate issues — the scientists — and those whose job it is to share that knowledge with the world — the journalists.

Working with the American Geophysical Union (AGU), the worldwide scientific organization advancing Earth and space research, Email Center Pro is provisioning its centralized, collaborative framework to accommodate the 700+ scientists from around the globe who will answer questions directly from journalists 24 hours/day for the duration of the conference. The scientists are scheduled to attend to email communication in two-hour stints.

For the AGU, this is a terrific opportunity to deliver the scientists’ wisdom — by providing journalists with unimpeded access — to those most in need of it: the planet’s inhabitants.

For Email Center Pro, which is hosted on the Internet, this represents an opportunity to prove much of its intrinsic value: the organization of communication and the chance to facilitate the mission critical development of a dynamic community. Conversations between scientists and journalists will take place around the clock and originate at points worldwide — and yet be virtually instantaneous. At the same time they are not so instantaneous that scientists aren’t allowed time to carefully consider replies to questions.

The conference will not only highlight the advantages of Email Center Pro, but also the continued viability of email as a communication vehicle. The benefits of instant messaging, screen sharing and video conferencing are well documented and true. But because it doesn’t demand the same kind of presence as those services, email still carries the load when it comes to flexibility.

COP15, and the subsequent AGU Fall Meeting being held Dec. 14-18 in San Francisco, are set to prove that.

Jason Gallic
Product Marketing Manager
Email Center Pro Guru

Tags: American Geophysical Union, collaboration, COP15, Copenhagen, Email Center Pro, news, palo alto software
Posted on December 9th, 2009 | No Comments »

Lots of things can happen when a job is done well. Here are a few:

1. Personal satisfaction
2. Sales for your company (or yourself)
3. Preservation of the natural “buying-selling” ecosystem
4. Unsolicited praise from your client base

This particular post is about number four. Every once in a while, a user of your product or service might find themselves so overwhelmed by the quality you provide that they decide to take matters into their own hands.

It happened to Email Center Pro the other day. One of the service’s users ( Jennifer Haubein of Websites 2 Grow) decided that telling us how impressed she was no longer sufficed. She wanted to tell others in her circle of influence.

Here’s what she said:

And here’s why she said it (in other words, here are some simple rules for soliciting unsolicited praise. Please note that simple doesn’t mean easy.):

1. Customer Service: If this sounds cliche to you, then you’re not managing it correctly. It’s not a cliche, it’s the bottom line. Customer service can look very different depending on the situation at hand. At all times, however, keep the customer in mind. Zappos did; they just sold for nearly $1 billion. I’m just saying.

2. Customer Support: The customer is using your product/service, you’re meeting their service needs and then something goes wrong. Do you hide and distribute the blame? Or do you step up and meet their need at every turn? (Please note that this can blur quite appropriately with customer service.)

3. A High-Quality Service/Product: This speaks for itself — somewhat. You certainly can’t get away with a sub-par product or an inconsistent service, but just know that even good (rather than amazing) products/services can enjoy success if attention is paid to the other numbers in this list.

4. Did I Mention Customer Service?: This can’t be understated. Be remarkable. It works. The most uplifting emails and calls received at Palo Alto Software are by those who were even more impressed with our service and support than with our product.

Happy soliciting!

Jason Gallic
Product Manager for Email Center Pro

Tags: customer service, Email Center Pro, evangelism
Posted on August 12th, 2009 | 1 Comment »

Today, Palo Alto Software got a taste of good business practice (and you just got a bad taste of pun).

The team at FormSpring not only integrated our customer email management service, Email Center Pro (a process we’ve been working on for a couple of months), but they sent us a cake from the best bakery in Eugene, OR, to announce it.

That makes this short post about three things:

1) Good business etiquette: Both companies have worked diligently to connect FormSpring and Email Center Pro. Now that the integration is complete, sending a gift — particularly a cake — makes an impressive statement.

2) Solid marketing approach: FormSpring sent a cake. Here’s the blog post to prove it. You can also find chatter about it on Twitter. And the buzz around the office is not due exclusively to the chocolate. Want to have an impact, be remarkable.

3) A very useful integration: FormSpring is an easy and efficient way to collect data online using customizable forms. It’s a terrific way to begin — or continue — a relationship with a customer. Email Center Pro is a customer email management tool, and serves as a tool for developing relationships. Together, they create a powerful solution. Learn more about it here.

All that said, I’m not 100 percent sure that free cake is good for productivity. I considered being more eloquent in this post. Then I realized that there’s cake here.

Jason Gallic
Product Marketing Manager
Email Center Pro

Tags: Email Center Pro, FormSpring, partnerships
Posted on August 5th, 2009 | 4 Comments »

Email is one of those things that people talk A LOT about fixing. It makes a terrific virtual water cooler topic because it meets the following requirements:

1. It’s draining
2. It’s incessant
3. Almost everyone has a suggestion about how to manage it

I’m going to go out on a limb and postulate that you’ve faced a few email issues of your own. How do you manage it, both personally and professionally? How do you use it to provide the kind of customer service you’d like to be known for? How do you support your brand with email?

These are all big questions, some with intuitive answers and others that require a bit more thoughtful digging. If that’s not digging that you’re interested in doing, you’re in luck. We’re handling that for you at the Email Center Pro blog.

Of particular interest might be a recent series we completed, entitled “Stop the Madness: Manage Email to Grow Your Business”. The posts provide insight on things like brand identity and the value that you provide through email. If you’re trying to figure out how to make better use of the time you spend wrestling with this communication channel, the Email Center Pro blog is the place to do it.

If you just want some interesting insights and a bit of a light-hearted look at email, you’ll find that there, too. We’d like to think that we’re a full-service solution.

Jason Gallic,
Product Manager, Email Center Pro

Tags: Email Center Pro
Posted on June 4th, 2009 | 1 Comment »

It’s nice when Guy Kawasaki writes about/alludes to/makes cursory mention of the product or service into which you pour a significant portion of your waking hours.

It means more than enjoying an influx of traffic to your website (a handy side-effect, no doubt). It’s also an encouraging validation that you’re taking some steps in the right direction. This is especially true when the praise comes for the method of evangelism as well as for the actual product or service.

Guy has built an ecosystem of success based as much on evangelism methodology as on the services he creates. Truemors, for instance, is a cool concept. But the story of how it came to be might actually be better known. Kawasaki built, developed and registered the site for a few thousand dollars.

So it’s nice when he folds your technique into his own as he did in this article that features Email Center Pro.

It’s an added bonus when the topic at hand is something about which we’re so passionate: Telling the story of our service as quickly, succinctly and creatively as possible. This is something on which every small business should focus. The marketplace is more crowded than ever. It’s vital to explain in two minutes or less what you do and why that matters.

Jason Gallic
Product Manager
Palo Alto Software

Tags: email, Email Center Pro, Guy Kawasaki, Marketing, video
Posted on March 20th, 2009 | No Comments »

Every so often (a rather ambiguous date range, don’t you think?) the demise of email is predicted.

It’s a pain.

It’s a spam-laden nightmare.

It’s archaic and clunky.

It’s possible that you, too, see email through this lens. But I’m going to hazard a guess and say that, regardless, email is still an essential part of your business and of your life.

In fact, I’ll go a step further: Without email, your overall communication plan (business or personal) would be irrevocably stunted. This is nothing to be ashamed of (though it seems many are). Without the keyless entry on my car, I’d drop a lot more groceries. I don’t think this makes me a bad person.

The latest fad in the “email is dead” game is to claim that social networking sites like Facebook, Twitter and MySpace will replace traditional email. Status updates, it is said, will suffice for passing along the critical information that travels through email. Check out this BBC article to prove it.

If this appears to be a sleek, trendy, agile solution to the headaches associated with email, well, it’s a bit premature. There is a long list of interesting and useful business applications possible with social networks. Conveying developed pieces of information necessary both internally and externally as part of the business process is not one of them.

That’s still the job of email.

• Email is a place where you get more than 140 characters to decode your message (unlike Twitter, for instance).
• Traditional email (as opposed to Facebook messages, for instance) is a credible, go-to business communication channel. It’s still a vehicle for CEOs to reach out to one another and for customer service reps to personally engage your customers.
• With 210 billion messages sent every day (a large percentage spam, I know), email is a part of our communication fabric, tied undeniably to much of what we do.

Want to make email even more useful? Check out some tips and tricks by clicking here.

Jason Gallic
Product Marketing Manager

Tags: communication, email, Email Center Pro, emailcenterpro
Posted on March 17th, 2009 | No Comments »

This is a time of year when family and good cheer should take precedence over work and things like email monitoring. Many of us will step away from our inboxes and turn our focus on real boxes — those containing gifts.

Of course that’s not to say that messages aren’t going to continue materializing in your inbox. In fact, you might even get a few good ones — potential leads, perhaps.

Given that fact, it’s impractical to consider stepping away from the mess entirely — as recommended in this Lifehacker.com blog post. This might work for the few of us who can afford to pass by viable opportunities or for those among us who don’t place a premium on customer service.

But for the rest of us, it would be nice to find a solution built to distribute the workload of customer and business email so that when one person steps away from her inbox, others can pick up the slack — and see that no opportunity is missed.

For instance, Email Center Pro was designed to manage exactly this scenario. By centralizing all of your email in a single, transparent location, there’s no longer a need for one person to manage all of it.

And that means that you can step away from your business email with a peace of mind — because you know that messages are no longer piling up in eager anticipation of your return. Instead what’s piling up is leads.

Jason Gallic
Product Marketing Manager
jason@paloalto.com

Tags: Email Center Pro, email overload, lost leads, managing email, vacation email
Posted on December 19th, 2008 | No Comments »

Taking a little time out here to make a couple announcements:

1)  We had a bit of an issue with our blog and some of you were not getting any of the blog posts in your RSS feeds for a while. We’ve fixed that and you should be able to see all of them now. We apologize for the rush of posts all at once, but hope you enjoy all the great “new” content you missed! Things should be smooth sailing from here on out.

2)  We’re going to be participating in the Global Entrepreneurship Week, November 17th-23rd. We’re getting all the specifics put together, but I’m going to give you a sneak peek!

Keep checking back for more details and some outstanding articles and posts all centered around getting back to the basics of your business. (If you’re interested in attending Tim Berry’s webinar on the 17th, make sure to register soon! It’s first come first serve and space is limited! Click the picture for more information.)

3) Palo Alto Software’s product Email Center Pro has released version 2.0!   Internally, several Palo Alto Software employee’s are participating in a “solidarity experiement” where we’ve all committed to … well, I’ll let Jason tell you all about it. Head over to our Dead-Simple Software blog to read all about the things we’ve decided to give up or do in the coming weeks.

That’s it! That wasn’t so bad now, was it?

‘Chelle Parmele
Social Media Marketing Manager
Palo Alto Software

Tags: business planning, Email Center Pro, email management, global entrepreneurship week, Palo Alto Software News, Plan as you go, roller skates
Posted on October 16th, 2008 | No Comments »

October 3, 2008

We’ll be showcasing our new Email Center Pro product at the forthcoming Future of Web Apps Expo, in London on October -10. The FOWA Expo will feature a number of well known speakers including Mark Zuckerberg of Facebook, Mike Butcher of Techcrunch UK & Ireland, as well as Julie Meyer of Ariadne Capital.

If you are in the vicinity of Excel London and want to attend, be sure to register and to visit us on Stand 12.

Alan Gleeson

Palo Alto Software U.K.

Tags: Email Center Pro
Posted on October 3rd, 2008 | No Comments »