If I ever suspected a correspondent of using something like this, they would be dead to me.
I appreciate a human-generated bump now and again, because it is a signal that they continue to care about what we were talking about. But automatically sending me message after machine-generated message to prod me into doing whatever they wanted? With no effort or intervening social judgment? Fuck that.
For people to whom this appeals, I'd suggest my approach: keep a "pending" list. If you haven't heard back and still care, you can always take the 30 seconds to say, "Hey, have you had a chance to think more about this?" or whatever the contextually appropriate thing is.
This may not work very well for out of organization contacts. But for inside organization contacts it works beautifully. They know youre spamming them but its like a reminder service for them (which they unfortunately wont do on their own).
We use Lync (msn messenger) internally and if someone hasn't responded to an email I ping them on that, ring them up, or even wander over and chat depending on our relationship.
There are plenty of folks I know with 100+ unread emails this week and a bunch of them will never get seen. So imo another email isn't the most effective way to resolve it.
As a human asking you for a response, I think I'd deserve one to my first email. I am writing the follow-ups in advance in case you starred it and forgot it, opened it on your cell and forgot to 'save as new.' Things like that.
Also, you won't know it's machine generated, though we are considering an option to add a blurb explaining that it is a friendly reminder powered by Rebump.
Would you feel differently if that were the default?
Thinking you deserve a quick response to every email you send is entitled bullshit. The presumption of this tool is that your time is more valuable than mine. It's insulting.
I may not know it's machine-generated the first time if you hide it well enough. But I damned well will the second or the third.
Personally, I put a rebump on an email to someone I need a yes/no answer from. Maybe it's a proposal that needs approval. Maybe it's whether they'll be joining us this weekend for a beer (because I have to make reservations). I don't expect an immediate response, but I set a rebump for a day later (default is 3 days) because I shouldn't have to chase you down to get a simple answer.
Definitely see your point about how annoying it would be to get these one email forwards from my great-aunt, though. We are trying to convey to users that Rebumps should be used judiciously. It seems to be working so far.
There's a wide range of urgency between sending a reminder after 3 days and ringing someone up to demand one right now. A Rebump works on a message that the recipient intends to respond to, but didn't, due to wide range of logistical reasons. If misapplied, it is the sender that will suffer the consequences.
I appreciate a human-generated bump now and again, because it is a signal that they continue to care about what we were talking about. But automatically sending me message after machine-generated message to prod me into doing whatever they wanted? With no effort or intervening social judgment? Fuck that.
For people to whom this appeals, I'd suggest my approach: keep a "pending" list. If you haven't heard back and still care, you can always take the 30 seconds to say, "Hey, have you had a chance to think more about this?" or whatever the contextually appropriate thing is.