Every company has it. The info@example.com email address. It seems to be the standard inbox for companies around the world. Some companies are more creative than others. They have a hello@example.com or contact@example.com address instead. Which is creative but doesn’t solve an underlying problem.
The Chaos of info@example.com
The inbox of the info@example.com email address is getting flooded with countless spam emails, phishing emails, and the like. Employees guarding these shared inboxes usually do a good job distinguishing between customer inquiries and everything else. The problem is the following: every email which is not clearly a customer inquiry is quickly regarded as spam.
There are more people writing emails to your info@example.com address than only customers and spammers. Every day there is an interesting supplier contacting you with a product which save or make you millions of dollars. A young and innovative startup is contacting you concerning a technology which might help launch innovative products earlier than your competition. A consultant offering you the solution to a problem you’ve always been trying to solve. An accountant might have an idea which might help you save hundreds of thousand of dollars each month.
The problem is the following: the info@example.com address is a congested inbox in which many relevant requests get lost. Your employees handling the info@example.com inbox are doing a great job filtering out customer requests, but they don’t know who is actually responsible for all the other requests coming in.
The following example happened to me in real life multiple times: A front desk lady asked me kindly to email her my request, she promised to forward it to the right person in charge. Half a year later I spoke to the product manager directly, and they were desperately looking for the solution I offered them 6 months ago. The solution was there. But my email concerning Bluetooth Mesh connectivity ended up in the IT department when it actually should have been forwarded to the product management. It was hidden in a flooded info@example.com inbox and was forwarded to the completely wrong person.
The ISP-Inbox
ISP stands for Innovation Supplier Partnership. The ISP-Inbox is an inbox where all potential suppliers and partners can contact your company, and introduce themselves. It is an inbox which is available to everyone in the company. Like a massive directory where the introduction of every potential business partner and suppliers is stored.
If a product manager is looking i.e. for Bluetooth Mesh solutions, he can simply browse the ISP-Inbox by searching for “Bluetooth Mesh”. If the CFO is looking for a way to easily handle the new painful accounting rule, he can take one minute to browse the ISP-Inbox for a potential partner. You understand what I mean.
Résumé
- Your info@example.com is a crowded and messy inbox where many important inquiries get lost
- The ISP-Inbox stands for Innovation Supplier Partnership Inbox
- Suppliers, Partners, Startups, Consultants and more can introduce their products and services by sending an email to the ISP-Inbox
- The ISP-Inbox is not filtered by a gate keeper, but is instead openly available to every employee in the company
- Everyone can browse the ISP-Inbox for potential partners or suppliers they might need for a current project or problem
