What's a MailFlow?

Tuesday, July 26, 2011

I’ve gotta tell you, sometimes it’s quite interesting being the VisNetic MailFlow Product Manager. We sell a variety of messaging and security products here at Deerfield, and with products like Kerio Connect or Deerfield Email Security, when speaking with new customers inquiring about the product, they have a general understanding of what the product is, why they want it, and what they want to do with it. MailFlow on the other hand is a foreign technology to most new, prospective users, and it takes some time and explaining for most to understand what MailFlow does and what it can do for them.

Why is that you might ask (as I often do)? In my opinion, it’s primarily because email management applications like MailFlow simply are not a standard technology used or understood by most organizations. Most companies use Outlook or whichever isolated email client that they prefer, and are unaware of the fact that:

a. Emails are going unanswered or are responded to improperly.
b. There is a better way to handle their customer correspondence.

So, what causes people to look for a product like MailFlow? In my experience, it’s because they’ve realized a problem in the way they’re managing their email. Whether it's a specific incident or a combination of issues, they’re looking for a better way. Some of the most common statements I hear from new users looking at MailFlow are: “We’re currently using shared folders in Outlook and we have one person assigning emails to the appropriate agent however it’s time consuming and becoming unmanageable.” Once organizations make this realization it’s a pretty short walk to a solution like MailFlow that is designed to do what Outlook isn’t, namely, manage email customer service.

The other factor that leads users to MailFlow is the oldest trick in the book, that’s helped Deerfield.com and MailFlow more than any other marketing strategy: word of mouth. MailFlow users are some of our most loyal customers, and most of them are eager to testify and spread the word on how MailFlow can help businesses efficiently handle their email traffic. In the early going, word of mouth was the primary vehicle for driving new MailFlow users to the product, but recently we’ve seen a growing trend of organizations actively looking for an email management solution, and finding MailFlow on their own. Feel free to share your own stories of what lead you to MailFlow. You can reach me directly at mryan at deerfield.com.

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