Is Email Marketing a Conversation?
An ongoing discussion in the industry regards whether or not email marketing can be a conversation. The notion that it should be a conversation has quickly evolved into what almost amounts to a philosophy for some. You will hear some very smart people evangelize this way of doing things.
Social Email Marketing
Leave the philosophy to people with more time. Your decision is about resources, image and marketing priorities
Resources: If you only have resources to do something very badly, then better not do it at all. This is a corollary of "do one thing well". So if you're very understaffed, don't try to handle email replies.
Image: People don't like "no-reply" email addresses, or statements like "please do not reply to this address as it is not monitored". These are rather offensive and not even true, because all commercial email addresses should be monitored for some types of replies such as bounces. If you have to block most email replies, e.g. because of spam problems, then turn it into a positive by providing a reply form or public forum. If you don't, then people will use unofficial channels such as Twitter.
A major advantage is that you stay in control of your image. There is (almost) no way of censoring tweets, or Facebook posts. But emails are already private. And if people are posting complaints in *your* forum on your site, then you can stop Google from indexing it (details) so the complaints get less exposure. We know of one very large company who set up a private complaints forum for exactly this reason.
Marketing Priorities: If you want to keep your customers engaged, and are emphasizing social marketing, then handling email replies is an essential part of the mix. If not, e.g. because people don't make regular purchases of your type of product, then do the bare minimum.