I think it’s great that just about every company has an info@ email address these days. You can just send an email to some generic box and sit back, knowing (hoping?) to hear back soon with a reply.

The only thing I like less than not getting a reply at all is the reply telling me that somebody will actually reply soon. Or getting an email back with a phone number to call.

Some recent examples that I’ve found annoying:

Your request information has been sent to us. We will be contacting you within 48 hours.
Thanks for telling me my request has been sent to you. I wasn’t sure that happened when I hit “send.” I think this one just needs a complete rewrite. If I was going to send out the same canned message to everyone who emailed me, I’d spend more than 20 seconds writing it. But that’s just me…

This message is to acknowledge that we have received your email. One of our members will be contacting you in the next 24 hours. We are Insanely Busy!!
This auto reply came from a company that provides administrative assistance to executives. If you’re telling me you’re too busy to reply to my email, why would I want to hire you to take care of MY administrative tasks?

Thank you for your inquiry. Your message has been received and will be directed to the appropriate staff member who will respond to you within 3 business days. We appreciate your interest in Our Company, Inc.
The thanks are nice and all, but really? Three days to get back to me?

Thank you for contacting The XYZ Company. We will respond to your request within 24hrs. Feel free to call us at 1-xxx-xxx-xxxx for faster service. Or log on to www.XYZ.com.
Why put an email address out there if you’re going to just tell people to call you for actual service?

In all of these cases, I imagine an office with one computer. Somebody’s nephew convinced them they needed a website and an email address to stay current. So they got the nephew’s buddy to design a website for them, got the email address up there to seem like they are reachable, and tried to forget all about it.

And now they’re stuck, having to reply to those pesky emails.