Email Etiquette 101
Email is hard. It's time consuming. We get hundreds of emails a day, it's easy to just ignore them.
#1. Don't Spam People
The golden rule of email is to *avoid spam* at all costs.
#2. Respond Timely
People expect responses to their email in a timely manner.
#3. Avoid Autoresponders
Never reply entirely on fully automated responses. People email you because they are hoping to hear from a real person, not a robot.
But automating emails can be done! Automating emails requires the best software, so read our guide on it. If you send an automated email that a human never checked over, what does your customer do when the response is wrong? The customer feels frustrated and dissatisfied. Regardless of how they are feeling, they are not going to want to do more business with your company.
Any machine-reply should be read over by a human before sending, to make sure it actually answers their question.
However it's fine to send an email saying "We got your email and will respond soon. In the meantime perhaps your question is answered in our FAQ found at URLHERE."