Recently, one of our customers sent us an email saying, “Thank you for the impressively swift reply,” which is the kind of feedback we love to get. Replying to emails, after all, is our job, and over the years, we’ve developed a habit to:
1. Reply to emails fast, usually on the same day
2. Keep emails short. We compose it in our minds before start typing
3. Use the best email tools
4. Never lose our emails even when disaster strikes
5. Use keyboard shortcuts
6. Use plain text email with small attachments at all times
7. Send download links instead of huge files over emails
8. Allow conversion view to keep messages in best order
9. Never mark an email as read until an action has been taken
8. Be thorough. First, we make sure that we don’t miss any questions, and second, we offer help and SOLVE the problem
We’d like to thank TG for inspiring and showing us how to develop these nifty email skills! While working with TG in the past, we noticed that he writes short and fast emails. He would shorten names to two characters, usually, and he would ask questions directly in the email when anything’s unclear, unlike many people who just ignore the email or reply much later, because apparently they need more time to think. TG solves problems with quick email exchanges and it’s very productive and effective!
Before I go, let me share with you what I think is an example of an email signature that’s bound to scare your customers away (or at least make them think twice about contacting you):
People have asked us, “What kind of company is 1.my?” and often, we find it extremely difficult to explain things especially because we’re constantly changing. The intern students who join us from time to time have often asked to see an organizational chart, and we have to tell them that there isn’t one. All in all, it’s not easy to define the organization as each team member has the flexibility to do whatever they want, as long as they have one mission in mind.
To understand us better, please refer to this book, it will give you a glimpse into the sort of technology that we use.
Ever since we decided that no message should be sent out looking like a machine-generated email, we’ve gotten overwhelming response and found that our customers are more wiling to share their problems with us now.
We are proud that they have us in mind when they come across any questions related to the IT field. Since it’s all about sharing and caring, we’re more than happy to help. In fact, we find it a pleasure to be able to interact with our customers on a personal basis.
Examples of day to day questions that we’ve received include:
Should we respond to emails that claim we have to secure xxxx.cn name etc?
Is safe to press the “proceed” button when the screen says the SSL certificate is not signed properly?
How does one switch to OpenDNS?
What is the best practice in naming a corporate email address?
Thanks for the questions you guys, we hear you and we’re here for you. Keep them coming!
Congratulation to the team led by our advisor, Prof Lee Yee Loon to spearhead a trial embankment on peat in Sibu, Sarawak. The idea evolved around turning biomass into lightweight aggregate for sustainable construction.
Team leader Dr. Lee Yee Loon (Ashmann Project)
UCIP Interview (From Left: Jason, Chong and Ali)
Pervious lightweight concrete for flood mitigation and rain water harvesting
For project detail, you can contact Dr. Lee (yllee@1.com.my)
Pin’s new 140-page book, ‘Guide to Online Business’ will set you back just RM35. To order, please send your money to payment@1.com.my via Paypal. The book isn’t refundable once sold, but just in case, you can find other good uses for it. Check this out:
As a mouse pad
As a coaster
As a table-height adjuster
The possibilities are endless! If you happen to have any other ideas, post it here.
The book is published by Leeds Publications. This book can not be done without the continuous support and guidance from Goh, the founder of Leeds Publications.
If you’re looking for an email hosting service, don’t just look at the top-ranked web hosting services and get blinded by offers of CPanel or unlimited bandwidth and storage. There’s always a catch behind those claims. We’re definitely avid users of Rackspace, but of course, there’s nothing wrong with trying something new. True enough, we recently found that BlueHost.com, a top-ranked WordPress hosting provider, was not up to our expectations.
So before you sign up for something, make a point to understand what the package offers, and think about whether or not it suits your needs. We’d have to say that some web hosting companies, especially those who provide customers with CPanel, are nothing but lazy. Not all web hosting customers have extensive technical knowledge, and will therefore find it difficult to tackle technical issues that might crop up. Like, how would a customer know that when an error pops up with PHP, it usually includes a file error?
These problems arise due to the fact that CPanel allows customers to customise features in their hosting account. Too many customisations often lead to confusion and unnecessary packages. Some customers even unknowingly disable their outgoing SMTP server, which makes contact forms and WordPress hosting very unfriendly to users. What happens is, when a user receives comments, they’re not notified accordingly.
Additionally, while some email hosts claim to give you unlimited bandwidth, there are still limitations. After you’ve seen your bandwidth shooting up, you’ll also notice that the loading time for your website has slowed down. So, while their claims of unlimited bandwidth are true, there are hidden bandwidth constraints.
Also, have you ever been enticed by free mailboxes? A friend asked me recently about Google Apps‘ offer of 25 free mailboxes, and if that would affect our business. While his concerns aren’t baseless, he was surprised to learn that we actually suggest the service to our customers and even set it up for them for free. Wait a minute; doesn’t this present a conflict of interest with our own email service (which can cost up to RM99 per mailbox a year)?
Well, as we’re on the frontline, we’re always trying to be different from other service providers. We evaluate new products and services to find the best solutions that’ll work for our customers. We want customers to trust us like we trust Google, in believing that their search engines will give us the most accurate search results. We tested Google Apps, worked and played with it for a couple months, and found that this new application can, in fact, improve our customer’s email communication. But, of course, a single solution can’t solve all problems.
Looking back, we’re glad that we brought Rackspace’s business email solution to Malaysia, although it was one of the most expensive email solutions around. Today, we’re proud to be one of the most reliable email solution companies in Malaysia!
With that in mind, our no-frills web hosting services will only cost RM80 a year. The standard package we have comes with 12GB of bandwidth, 10GB of storage and 1000 compute cycles. Almost 99% of our current website owners use no more than 20% of the usage. For those exceeding their bandwiths, they can rest assured that we don’t badger them into upgrading, which can be costly. We’ll only suggest an upgrade if it is the only solution.
For example we’ve encountered a web owner who accidently uploaded one of Lady Gaga’s songs in MP3, and his bandwidth shot up to few GB a day. Do you think he needed to buy extra bandwidth? By identifiying where goes wrong, we can solve the bandwidth problem without additional upgrade. I don’t think so. Also, we’re the first to limit single-host names per hosting service. Meaning, if you want to have blog.abc.com and abc.com, you’ll need to subscribe to two hosting packages.
