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Ask HN: What's the best "Contact Us" email address for a startup?

by magsafe on 1/19/14, 5:09 PM with 43 comments

Some choices:

contact@mydomain.com, support@mydomain.com, help@mydomain.com, hello@mydomain.com, team@mydomain.com

Anything else? I'd like it to be friendly, informal and generic enough for any question a customer might have.

  • by agwa on 1/19/14, 5:50 PM

    I prefer companyname@domain.com because I've noticed that sometimes in gmail and other mail clients the email address is rendered as just the local part (the part before the @ sign), and I want customers to see something meaningful instead of just "hello" or "contact".

  • by skram on 1/19/14, 5:24 PM

    Depending on your structure and size, I'd suggest just doing a catch-all so any of these will work and so emails to the wrong email address (anything@mydomain.com) will get to the general inbox.

    That being said, I think hello@ or team@ are most friendly and general enough. Help@ and support@ seem to not welcome sales or pre-sales inquiries.

  • by dmckeon on 1/19/14, 11:08 PM

    In theory, RFC 2142 answers this:

        http://tools.ietf.org/html/rfc2142
    but in practice, any of the addresses listed there will be the targets of a lot of spam - so I would avoid using those as live working addressses.

    You could perhaps put a powerful spam filter in front of sales@ and info@ and see if any pearls pass through it - if anyone at your company can spare the time for that - up to you.

    Otherwise, the exact addresses you use are less important, as long as Joe Random customer/vendor/outsider can understand which address (or contact form) to use.

    If your company is in an established niche, you might follow any patterns that exist in that niche - check your own address book for ideas.

  • by poulsbohemian on 1/19/14, 5:37 PM

    Personally I use "howdy@domain.com" because it is just so darn friendly ;-)

  • by codegeek on 1/19/14, 5:37 PM

    I would divide it up by business functions. "Contact", "team" etc are very generic. For example, both an exisiting customer and a prospective customer could tehcnically be "contacting" you. But you want to differentiate there. I would go for something like:

        Sales: sales@xyz.com

    Customer Support: customersupport@xyz.com

    Press release/inquiry: press@xyz.com

    Partners/vendors etc: partner@xyz.com

    Anything else: hello@xyz.com (This can be creative as you like)

  • by ecesena on 1/19/14, 6:00 PM

    [partially related] Do you reply as, e.g., support@mydomain.com, or from you personal email myname@domain.com? Do you use a real or fake person to address customer support queries?

  • by somethingcoolio on 1/19/14, 6:40 PM

    Personally I would go with: askcompanyname@mydomain.com Because as JacobH stated, "contact" feels to formal.

    Everything else has all ready been recommended, ie: support@mydomain.com for CUSTOMER support. press@mydomain.com for dealing with vultures. partners.partnername@mydomain.com for partners.

    I'd make my catch-all something like "generalinfo@mydomain.com"

  • by hobo_mark on 1/19/14, 6:27 PM

    How about ask@domain? It clearly states that you're open to answer any kind of question from customers and/or partners, and it's neither too formal (like sales@, support@, accounting@) nor hipster-casual (say, hello@, howdy@, yourfriends@ and so on).

    Then you might also want to use team@domain for announcements but that's it.

  • by MichaelTieso on 1/19/14, 5:45 PM

    Keep it as simple as possible. One email address for everything and expand as time goes on. I usually do contact@.

  • by tansey on 1/19/14, 5:46 PM

    If you really just want one email for everything, go with team@mydomain.com. All the other choices imply a purpose for the email (e.g., first contact or help with a problem).

  • by j45 on 1/19/14, 9:52 PM

    You could pick one, publish it, and set an alias for all the other ones to go there and not fret about it much more. I've used help@ for a long time.

  • by mustafab on 1/19/14, 9:38 PM

    We are using 42@ for our contact address. It's fun & short, it's meaningful, and for sure it's for every (ultimate) question :)

  • by 27182818284 on 1/19/14, 9:09 PM

    I prefer team@domain.com,

    but when responding I always respond

    first name, personalemail@company.com

  • by kurtle on 1/19/14, 5:51 PM

    I always assume I can reach someone at support@domain.com. That's the only one I assume.

  • by ChikkaChiChi on 1/19/14, 7:29 PM

    general inquiries usually go to info@. if you are that concerned, use actionable verbs.

    we're past the point where setting up email us trivial, so endlessly splitting up your email addresses is more self serving than customer centric.

    PS: contact forms are way more important.

  • by gothep on 1/19/14, 6:04 PM

    I Love Mediums: yourfriends @ medium.com. Feels just a tiny bit more personal.

  • by KC8ZKF on 1/19/14, 5:48 PM

    Pick an easy to spell first name e.g. pat@mydomain.com

  • by tobykier on 1/19/14, 8:14 PM

    questions@domain.com

    most of the time people are mailing you unsolicited it's because there's something they want to know.

  • by tobykier on 1/19/14, 8:14 PM

    questions@domain.com

    most of the time people are mailing you unsolicited it's because there's something they want to know

  • by JacobH on 1/19/14, 5:32 PM

    support - if you are helping customers

    team - if you want to get to know the team or make a general inquiry

    contact - feels kind of too formal

    Just my take on it.

  • by ninh on 1/19/14, 5:38 PM

    info@domain.com for general inquiries.

  • by ikonos_de on 1/19/14, 11:29 PM

    I usually use office@....

  • by fredgrott on 1/19/14, 5:31 PM

    HiHowCanIHelpYou@anydomain.com

  • by adidash on 1/19/14, 7:01 PM

    connect@mydomain.com