Email is good.

A blog ostensibly about email productivity by Chris Coyier who you can email, obviously, at chris@coyier.com

On the surface, I like the idea of email aliases that don’t send to any one people but “one or more” people that represent something.

For instance:

  • design@dribbble.com — Could email everyone who is on the design team at Dribbble.
  • sales@bendford.dom — Could email the entire sales staff at an auto dealership.
  • janets@salesforce.com — Could email everyone named Janet at Salesforce.
  • euchre@shutterstock.com — Could email everyone who joined the Wednesday lunch Euchre club at Shutterstock.
  • bathrooms@alehouse.biz — Could email whoever’s job it is to clean the bathrooms that week at the bar.
  • gigs@sistersfiddleclub.org — Could email everybody who likes to pick up the occasional music gig in some city.

If all the alias does is forward it to everyone on some “team”, I could see it actually being used. But it still requires someone to manage it, so I bet that’s the main reason why it’s rare to see. These also could just be an inbox and everyone who is relevant has access. Whichever way, aside from the management of it, if multiple people get or are responsible for the same incoming email, there is a lack of clarity of who should be responding or dealing with it, and that’s actually probably why it’s so rare. Too ambiguous.

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One response to “Team Email Aliases”

  1. Paul Avatar
    Paul

    I’ve found this to be more a side effect of the organization size: SMB and startups I’ve worked at have been small enough where they’ll _successfully_ have all@example.com, eng@example.com, hr@example.com, etc which do simply forward to a set group of addresses. At enterprises, or at least the enterprises I’ve worked at, these aliases _might_ exist more in favor to provide a standardized email interface at the risk ambiguity e.g. hr@acme-corp.tld you don’t know exactly _who_ your email is going to.

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