The pattern I have seen (which imo is not annoying) is that the welcome email comes from the 'CEO's address and you can reply or book a call.
Most people will delete it. But I don't find it dishonest because it's literally an offer to help and you can ask anything you like (I have always gotten replies as a consumer).
I'm assuming once this doesn't scale you can just do the same with support agents (no fake here, just put their names and emails) so the inbound is handled by different people with the same goal in mind.
This is exactly what I do at my SaaS platform. The "Welcome" email explains that you can do the click-here-and-do-yourself approach to onboarding or if you need help or have a question, just reply to the email. I think that's the lowest friction option for most new users. Over the few years that I had this in the welcome email, very few people took advantage of the offer and replied.
Most people will delete it. But I don't find it dishonest because it's literally an offer to help and you can ask anything you like (I have always gotten replies as a consumer).
I'm assuming once this doesn't scale you can just do the same with support agents (no fake here, just put their names and emails) so the inbound is handled by different people with the same goal in mind.