1. Natasha Macdonald Gold

    Head Product Development at The Caravan Club

    11 June 2008 16:35pm

    Natasha Macdonald

    Hi

    We are reviewing how we send email order confirmations to our customers who purchase various products and services from our website or via contact centre. Currently the confirmations are sent from the website in html format.

    We are implementing SAP and their standard solution is to send all confirmations at PDF attachement. This was not something we were expecting and not something I see many leading websites doing.

    Makes sense for invoices but a standard order or booking confirmation does not work for me for many reasons.

    Are there best practice guidelines around sending  plain text/html emails vs sending emails with pdf attachments?

    Anyone got any advice on this to back my arguement or perhaps change my viewpoint!

    Thanks

    Natasha

  2. Jez Wilson

    Consultant at The Ecommerce Consultant

    11 June 2008 17:25pm

    Jez Wilson

    I would have to agree with you. Sending a branded html email has to be the way forward. It gives the consumer a direct feeling of being in touch with the brand without having to open an attachment, an attachment is to impersonal and is an unnecessary addition to the purchase process.

     If you are b2b then pdf method is acceptable.

    Just an opinion rather than fact.

    I guess you could get around sap by wrapping the receipt to xml then using a small app to convert to a formatted email, easily doable and should take no longer than two - three days to sort out.

  3. peggy sue

    pea ltd

    12 June 2008 18:16pm

    peggy sue

    it is definately more beneficial in times like these to minimise confirmstions to electronic means...what how do you gain new customers?

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