Why you should reply to automated emails

Picture this, it's an all too common scenario, you sign up to something to test it out and then forget about it completely. Weeks later you come back to it and having forgotten you signed up to test it, you sign up again via different creds. Now, without realising it, you've got two accounts.

Eventually you realise this and go back to delete one of those accounts. And, within minutes, you get an automated email about cancelling your account which asks for feedback on why.

This is exactly what happened with me and Cosmic. I'd signed up via Google originally, then forgot and signed up via GitHub only to decide that Google was what I'd prefer to stick with (I'd already put a load of data in by the time I realised). Now, as I'd been using Cosmic for a while at this point, I was actually really bullish on it and sharing my feelings on Twitter and here. I'd also written a community article about how I set up my publishing workflow via Drafts. I was well along my way to being an advocate, so I felt it necessary to reply to this automated email to explain that I, in-fact, was really into Cosmic and had shared so publicly.

I assumed it'd go into a void of darkness like most replies to automated emails, but no, Tony (Cosmic CEO) replied and engaged me in good conversation about my use of Cosmic. I then got introduced to the Slack channel and built a bit more of a relationship before going back to my normal life.

After a month or so, Tony got back in touch and asked if I would be interested in figuring out a graphic for a blog post being as I'm a designer who uses Cosmic and thus understands how JAMstack works on a technical level. I obliged and, after a little back-and-forth, the visual went live and our professional relationship began.

Tony and I have a mutual love of interfaces void of clutter and noise, and so I couldn't resist mocking up some thoughts on where I felt Cosmic could go. Tony, quite frankly, loved it. So I worked on some more bits including a refresh to the above-the-fold main page design and---cut forward to a few months later---I'm now proud to say that I'm the Design Lead at Cosmic, defining our design vision with Tony and building out the interfaces you'll be using day-to-day as a Cosmic user (when we ship our updates!).

So, what does this post ultimately tell you? Well, sometimes the simplest actions can lead to the most unexpected and exciting outcomes. I didn't need to feedback on why I "chose to cancel Cosmic" and I certainly didn't need to advocate online for Cosmic as a random customer. But when everything aligns, great things can happen.

Reply to those automated emails, you never know what might happen.