Related Posts
Bowl Leader
Will CSPO help in Product Manager role?
Additional Posts in Advertising
Saturday night live is getting good again.
Even W+K has flops every once in a while.
New to Fishbowl?
Download the Fishbowl app to
unlock all discussions on Fishbowl.
unlock all discussions on Fishbowl.
It still has a use, especially if it’s a “confirming receipt” with a follow up with clarifying questions. A lot of people don’t frequently check their email every second of every day in order to get work done. Easy to miss one here or there.
I like them!! It’s polite
I consistently opt out of the notification if I receive it. Control freaks…
Pro
It helps calm anxious minds. I do it by a person-by-person basis.
Some clients you need to do this, because if they don’t hear back in a couple of hours you’ll get a passive aggressive “did you get my email?” Message with your boss, and your bosses boss, and his or her boss on copy.
This might be slightly passive aggressive, but I love when our AMs ask clients to confirm receipt. If they’re going to demand insane turn-arounds that require staying up all night, I like the transparency if the deliverables are just going to sit in their inbox for two days. Lets us know if the next “emergency” really is or is just poor time management on their part.
It’s the only thing that keeps my wild clients in check 🤷♀️
most of the time it’s just about confirming that they read my email and agree to next steps in a project
For clients I get it. But my inbox is absolutely cluttered with purely internal emails of people doing that. If that is something you do, please stop. It's hard enough to stay on top of emails and DMs and ten million meetings every day.
Chief
Great. I prefer to be less diplomatic anyway.
“Let me know you got this. Why? Because you have a sh*tty track record of being habitually non-responsive. So if I don’t hear from you then I’ll CC everyone on my next email asking when you’re going to respond with the information I requested twice already.”
Sometimes they’re necessary. I do it when I send invoices. Because people try to claim they ‘missed the email’ when they don’t pay on time.
Totally agree! I think for approvals or financial things they make sense. Or even if there’s feedback but your team needs extra time (confirming receipt, this will take a few days but will keep you updated).
It’s a generational thing. Observe:
Gen Xer 1 on Monday: “Meet you there on Friday at 5. It’s the Smith on 956 2nd Avenue at 51st.”
Gen Xer 2 on Monday: “See you then!”
Four days later, Gen Xer 1 and 2 actually meet at the venue at 5:05.
Millennial 1 on Monday: “Meet you there on Friday at 5. The Smith. I’ll send you a link.”
Millennial 2 on Monday: “See you then!”
Millennial 1 on Thursday: “See you tomorrow! I’ll text you a the link again.”
Millennial 2 on Thursday: “Yep!”
Millennial 1 on Friday morning: “We still on for today at 5?”
Millennial 2 on Friday morning: “Yep!”
Millennial 1 on Friday afternoon at 4:55: “Running about 10 minutes late.”
Millennial 2: “That’s OK me too!”
They both actually meet at the venue at 5:20.
Gen Zer 1 on Monday: “Meet you there on Friday at 5 at the Smith.”
Gen Zer 2 on Monday: “See you then!”
Gen Zer 2 on Thursday: “Which location for the Smith? There are four locations.”
Gen Zer 1 on Thursday: “The Upper East Side one.”
Gen Zer 1 on Friday at 4:55: “Running about 10 minutes late.”
Gen Zer 2: “Oh I didn’t hear from you today so I assumed you canceled.”
You totally ignored the Gen Xers (everyone seems to do this for some reason).
The Gen Xers had the thoughtfulness and security to tell each other something once and show up without needing additional messages.
Because Gen Xers didn’t have portable tech growing up, they were required to have a baseline of consideration for others, otherwise they’d lose all their friends.
You are probably right about Millennials vs. Gen Z. But that’s not the point. The point was unlike Gen Xers, Millennials and Gen Zers have self-centric points of view and rely on tech to help others. This means they need multiple rounds of clarifications and confirmations because they naturally don’t give each other enough info to make the other person feel safe. Then they breadcrumb little bits of info but only after the other person asks, because it never occurred to them to just give all the info up front. You can flip the generations and it’s the same story. It makes what could’ve been 1 message turn into 4–6 messages.
The “red herring” topic was not intended as a red herring. It demonstrates why we are seeing more and more redundant confirmation emails today unlike back in 2007, which is the year OP mentioned. What generations are UX designers and copywriters today? They don’t know how to create a single web page or email that does the job of several confirmation emails and notifications because they are accustomed to leaning on tech to fill in the gaps instead of tapping into human consideration. Human consideration should guide the design.
If a page or email is designed the right way and says the right things, you won’t need to send so many confirmations because the user won’t even need to ask for additional info in the first place.
So what’s the consensus….
I hate sending them but it definitely helps with anxious types or more urgent requests. Imagine being the sender with this urgent request that others on your team is shaking you down for and you sent the request to your agency partner with no response. if there’s no confirmation given, then you’re going to feel more stressed throughout the day that they aren’t even working on it. Then disappointed when you get a response that seemingly took longer than you anticipated.
You get a confirmation they got it and are working on it, this can help reset your mental state as the requester. You may feel more confidence in your updates to your stakeholders internally knowing it’s getting handled in an adequate amount of time. Even if it takes just as long as the scenario when they didn’t send a confirmation.
I guess I should have clarified, I’m sorry I was annoyed yesterday 😂
Cases in which I think a confirmation makes sense:
- financial emails/invoices
- approval on a big creative where you want to CYA/have a paper trail
- when clients send feedback that will take more time than usual to implement and get back to them. OR if there are any clarifying questions
When it makes no sense (to me):
- internal emails (PLEASE STOP)
- easily applied feedback that will turn around within the same 8 hour workday
- when you ask someone to send a document/information and they follow through (unless you need access to the document)
- in a giant discussion thread, adding a random “confirmed receipt.” It’s clear that you’ve been recieving the emails, why add a confirmation?
I know there are a billion other scenarios in our day to day, but those are the ones that stick out to me.
Agree with those in favor. You are in the client service business buddy! The client wants to know you’ve taken their order, and ask them if they want fries with that.
I think it’s nice when you’re dealing with anxious peeps