The term is used a lot for systems that automate email marketing. It implies a system that just, well, responds to customer inquiries. This has its uses, of course. If a visitor to your site fills out a support request then it’s helpful to send a quick automatic reply saying “we will reply to your request soon”. However if you base your entire email marketing campaign around such a one-way interaction then you are ignoring valuable conversations that you can have with your customers.

Many autoresponders will take your signed up customer and schedule a set of emails to be delivered to them. You can choose when these emails are sent – let’s say once a week for a whole year. The problem here is that you’re sending every customer down the same path through the same set of emails. We all know that every customer is different. What works for Joe might not work for Jim. Also does the system allow you to get feedback from your customers and adjust the scheduled messages?

It’s time to stop thinking about autoresponders and start looking at email systems that allow you to tailor your conversations to the individuals that you have on your contact list.