The Effect That COVID Has Had On Email Communication

Many organizations have noticed a spike in the volume of emails they manage and this trend gained traction a few months ago.  In March, most places were forced to halt operations in response to the stay-at-home orders that the government issued.  Companies could no longer rely on membership websites to promote engagement which is why they turned to email communication.  Yet, in some cases, their efforts haven’t exactly delivered what they had in mind.

 

A significant portion of the emails that organizations sent out during the quarantine didn’t make it or disappeared to the spam folder since they were sent to the wrong place.  These are individuals that haven’t received emails from the companies in question for months or years.  This gap in communication has encouraged certain security mechanisms to interpret the email as spam.

In response, individuals have either unsubscribed from membership websites or blocked certain senders altogether.  The solution here isn’t to abandon email communication but organizations must learn to moderate the volume of emails they send.

 

While some organizations have merely raised the volume of emails being sent, others have increased the frequency by turning monthly or weekly newsletters into daily publications.  This is an indication of desperation that has also resulted in complaints from a few recipients who have redirected these emails to the trash folder.  Any organization that wants to increase the frequency of its emails should make this transition gradually until the recipients grow accustomed to the new schedule.

 

Organizations are starting to realize that it isn’t helpful to mention COVID in their emails.  The reason why is that coronavirus scams have become so common that certain security mechanisms have started flagging emails that mention COVID.  As a result, organizations are placed in a difficult position as a failure to address the pandemic tends to attract accusations of insensitivity.

There are no obvious solutions to this particular issue since most people have been advised to be very cautious of opening emails that mention COVID.  Ultimately, there are recipients who are choosing to ignore emails that feature virus content so organizations need to keep that in mind when drafting emails.