Automated Reply Management

When you send an email broadcast, you usually want to generate a response. Even if you are only trying to disseminate information, it is likely that some of the recipients will reply to you with questions or requests. Managing these responses is a critical component of a successful email communications program.

MDS New England's ReplyServer response management helps you process incoming messages reliably and easily. Our system collects incoming messages in a high-capacity mailbox and automatically handles them according to the contents of the "Subject" field. This lets you automate routine tasks such as address changes, subscription requests, and add/drop requests. Following your instructions, users reply to the message and type a pre-defined keyword into the "Subject" field. Messages are then handled according to the keyword.

For some types of replies, no information is required other than the identity of the sender and the broadcast job that generated the original message. In other cases, such as survey replies or editorial comments, the entire reply is valuable. ReplyServer processing can accommodate both situations, using keywords to determine how to handle the message contents.

If only basic reply information is being kept, it is collected and stored it in a delimited text file. If the reply message contents are also required, the header information is stored in the delimited file, and the message contents (body and/or attachments) are stored on our system. Once every 24 hours (starting from the first reply to your broadcast) the reply system closes the log file and deposits this delimited file into your mailbox.

The delimited files can easily be imported into popular spreadsheet or database programs, where you can sort and analyze the information.

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