One would think technology companies would be relatively clued-in to the nuances of business communications, and look for real, targeted opportunities to make sales. Blasting an scattershot email to a large number of random email addresses is about as effective as direct mail is these days (does anyone actually read junk mail?).

But alas, even Cisco is prone to those sales droids who still think that one has to market to (and consequently annoy) millions of unqualified prospects in order find one person willing to talk to them.

Gretta Spaulding is subject of our analysis today. Attached below is the missive that arrived in A Small Orange's helpdesk ticketing system.

The first thing we should note: this was not sent to a personal email address. This was sent to a helpdesk email address. This address is solely used for customers to contact the hosting company. It is not used for non-support, business correspondence in any way (we use our own email addresses for that). This address is never used for opt-in marketing communications. This tells us she's trawling for email addresses or purchasing email lists, probably from a somewhat shady supplier ("100,000 verified email addresses for only $19.99!"). So this is already an inappropriate correspondence, and is wasting the time of our helpdesk technicians who now must read through this and delete it when they could be more usefully addressing customer problems.

Second, even if the advertisement were in some way relevant to our business, the helpdesk is probably the last place she should be sending correspondence. How many Level 1 Helpdesk Techs do you know of that are decision-makers and/or have any sort of purchasing authority? That's what I thought. Why Cisco approves of their sales staff targeting inappropriate prospects through unsolicited communications is beyond me.

Third, the subject line is a clear violation of the CAN-SPAM act, namely "don't use deceptive subject lines". I fail to see how "I've got your keys" has anything to do with WebEx products or services.

Looking at the headers information, this unsolicited email was sent through a third-party marketing list service, called Genius Network. A quick look at their home page shows a Wordpress blog with two pages. They at least include an abuse@ address, and I have already forwarded the email to them. I've also sent this to abuse@cisco.com, but I highly doubt anything will happen there. Cisco is such a spawling organization that it would probably be a low level admin that receives it, escalates it to his manager, who then has to forward it to the VP of Sales, who then has to make it filter down to Gretta Spaulding's direct superior. At any point in that chain, someone is going to throw it away thinking, "Oh, it's just one complaint. It doesn't matter."

[Update: I received an auto-reply from Cisco, also attached below. They're so immune to the idea that someone in their organization might be sending spam that they offered several alternate contact addresses for various aspects of Cisco security. But...I don't need to address Cisco security, I need Cisco to stop sending unsolicited commercial email!]

You may be asking yourself, "Why don't you just use the unsubscribe link at the bottom and end it there?" Because the helpdesk never subscribed to this list! I fail to see why I should have to perform extra work because Gretta Spaulding and Cisco decided to obtain an illegitimate list of emails to spam their WebEx service.

Note to Cisco managers, executives, and lawyers: before you try to file suit against me for libel, you may want to ask yourselves...does your reputation really hinge on a blog entry from one person, or from the millions of people who received your spam? Are any of the statements presented above patently false? (I maintain, "no"...re-read the spam email I posted).

Also for the lawyers: Cisco and WebEx are registered trademarks of Cisco Systems, Inc.