Only every other Santa replies to e-mail Christmas lists

Not a trace of merry e-Christmas
Time for Father Christmas to pick up his papers? Only one in two representatives of Christmas Ltd. bother to reply to the Christmas lists children send in to them. And even the Santas who do reply frequently fob their young clients off with standard phrases. Four out of ten replies do not refer specifically to the presents the children have asked for. These are the findings of the worldwide Mystery Check conducted on behalf of novomind by seven-year-old Johanna from Hamburg.

Quality varies greatly among German Father Christmases
German Internet Father Christmases vary greatly in their performance. One heavenly gift distributor from himmelstadt.christkind(at)web.de even tells kids to send their Christmas lists by snail mail. The reason: he no longer processes electronic ones! His colleagues at www.weihnachtsdorf.de don’t exactly hurry with their replies to e-mail enquiries, either. In fact, Johanna, the young sender of an electronic Christmas list, is still waiting for an answer from Father Christmas’s team there. The young shopper gave top marks to the big-city white-beards of www.weihnachtsstadt.de, on the other hand, who not only replied specifically to her questions but also addressed her personally. Her wishes were currently being reviewed by the elves, she was told, and the man in red explained that he could not guarantee that her presents would arrive on time but that, due to his ability to travel through time, it was possible to be everywhere at once.
 
USA top...
As anticipated, the Santa Clauses from the USA provided fast and service-oriented responses. Three out of four US white-beards answered little Johanna's e-mail within a day and even forgave her imperfect English. (Johanna had had her wishes translated specially.) Two out of three members of the Santa guild did not, however, answer her questions in any great detail.
 
...Finland flop
There wasn’t even a heavenly peep out of the Father Christmases from down under, Canada or Finland. Not one replied to little Johanna’s Christmas list e-mails. But the silence from Joulupukki in Finland was the biggest disappointment. She had expected more from Santa and his elves in the Far North, obviously.
 
Background information
The results of the Mystery Check are based on an analysis of e-mail responses (or lack of them) from Father Christmases that was conducted in late November by novomind AG. On behalf of children everywhere, seven-year-old Johanna from Hamburg sent her Christmas list to the electronic post-boxes of Father Christmases in a total of five countries (Germany, USA, Finland, Canada, Australia). She wrote: "I would like a pink Nintendo DS, a new bike helmet and a book about horses for Christmas. Can you tell me whether I will get the presents I want this year?" She was also curious to know how one person can distribute all the many presents on his own.
 
novomind AG: innovative software for professional customer communication
Hamburg-based software company novomind is the fastest-growing company in the fields of electronic customer communication and mail management. As a leading provider of innovative solutions for digital customer communication, novomind AG offers software for service-based, personalised interaction with customers. This achieves noticeable increases in the efficiency of customer administration, as well as a fast return on investment. The service portfolio of the Products Business Unit includes the novomind Self Service Suite™. This software package contains all of the communication modules required for a customer service centre, which revolve around a central knowledge base: e-mail management, virtual customer consulting and systems for interactive real-time communication. In its Services Business Unit, novomind AG implements complex eBusiness applications. More than 40 big-name companies have already opted for novomind technology, including Citibank, Otto and the Deutsche Rentenversicherung Bund (German Pensions Association). Club Bertelsmann, EnBW and Mexx, as well as public sector institutions such as the German Bundestag and the Federal Ministry of Economics, are already using novomind systems successfully to back up their customer communication, increase their turnover and improve their public relations.

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