Danny  Meyer you wrote:

REPLY
Arild writes:
Speaking from an inside perspective:

General  email sent to a corporate  address is  read by  some staffer who
likely doesn't have any technical expertise.
Their job is to filter and redirect all such email to the right person.
If the query  is  not routine or requires  very specific  knowledge  to
answer, it isn't unusual for a message to get redirected two or more times
before it reaches  the  right person.

If mail volume is low,  the  box may not be checked  frequently.  Or one
person is responsible for  sorting  all  genral query email and gets
several hundreds a day.

I saw a survey  that  indicated that most companies still do not
understand and  implement sucessful  procedures for  using the internet as
a business tool.  I think Xantrex was better than average  since there was
a corporate  will to  become  fully elecrtonic yet even there I know the
system had shortcomings which the  IT staff simply didn't have the time and
resources to do anything about.
I  can only  guess at how  other companies handle theirs.
I do know some companies sub-contract out  their  internet service work.
Now you have a third party  involved.

Your best approach is to  direct your email to a specific individual
inside the organization.
A quick phonecall  using a toll free number to get the email address of
either a sales manager or engineering  support person  is the best bet.
More and more companies are using a standard format  of first name plus
initial or last name plus initial @ company.com  or first name.last name@
company.com

Mike sugggested using a Fax.
Unfortunately faxes are also handled  by a "mail clerk" or receptionist who
sorts  them and distributes  the hard copy to  individual mail boxes.
Personally I only checked my snail mail box once a day.  It was located at
the other end of the building.
Snail mail was delivered by the post office between 11:30 AM and 12:00 noon.
All incoming mail was  sorted and distributed  no sooner than 1:00 PM so I
normally  checked  the mail room by afternoon coffee break time.
Ooops.  3:00PM  Pacific time means 6:00 PM Atlantic time.  Oh well,  call
them tomorrow!
See what I mean.  I was known for better than average  response time.,so
take a guess at how  other companies  respond.

Cheers

Arild

At 07:00 AM 8/16/01, you wrote:

It is only a guess, but they may get so much email that they just don't
respond much.
Comes under the catagory of "it's too easy to send email" therefore the
quality is low??
Try fax, that usually gets attention. Then start email.

Capt. Mike Maurice
Near Portland Oregon.