Angry customer, my replies going to his spam folder!

[esllou]

I've now had 4 increasingly angry responses from a customer on my website. There's something I need from him before he can do what he wants to do, but I've now sent a total of 10 mails to the only address I've had of his, from 4 different mail domains - and all, I can only assume, are going straight into his spam folder as the responses keep getting more and more angry and frustrated.

Any solutions? :-(

[jdMorgan]

Other than removing anything and everything that looks "commercial" from your replies, so that your message looks more like a personal e-mail, and/or sending from an e-mail address that looks more like a personal friend, other solutions are more difficult.

Can you get the full e-mail headers from his e-mails?

If so, you could detect his IP address (as shown as "X-Originating-IP" in the full headers) and put up a special page just for that customer, directing him to check his spam or "bulk mail" folder for your replies.

You might also be able to get more info to qualify this "special page" presentation by looking in your raw server logs (searching by IP address) and then using his browser's user-agent string to further help make sure it's him.

Having identified him on your site, you could either redirect to a special page, or conditionally include a message on your pages directing him to check his spam or bulk mail folder for your replies.

Of course none of this will work if he's on a "very-dynamic" IP address or uses an ISP like AOL or Earthlink which hides him behind a caching proxy.

Jim

[edited by: jdMorgan at 4:23 pm (utc) on Feb. 14, 2009]

[esllou]

yeah, I was thinking how I could communicate with him via my site, but without going into specifics, the issue he's mailing about means it's highly likely he's not going to be visiting the site.

I'm thinking of getting in touch with canada.com, which he has his e-mail address with...and asking them to send him a message. I think that may be the easiest solution.

[edited by: esllou at 4:47 pm (utc) on Feb. 14, 2009]

[rocknbil]

I maintain a yahoo, AOL, and gmail account for specifically this reason. "Hi, sending from my yahoo account because it doesn't appear you're receiving my emails . . . " I see you're doing that.

However, something to be aware of - four times now I've tried to email different customers on different server environments with different emails.

Each of those emails contained a link. In all cases it was a different link, but it was the link causing it to get spam-boxed. Usually it was an inquiry: "Hey I came across this site that guarantees top ten search results for $99, what do you think?" When I replied, the included link caused it to get spam-boxed. (You can see by the question why . . . . )

So don't forgo the possibility that it might be your content.

[esllou]

yeah, this afternoon, I'm going to try again starting with a blank e-mail. I usually hit Respond and his mail subjects always have the word "download" in and in the content, there's always the word "eBook". This might be hitting the spam flags.

[D_Blackwell]

from a customer

I'm assuming that you do not have a phone number, or you would just call. If this is a customer then maybe you have enough information to get a phone number. - First name Last name City State - might pop up a white page listing that will give you the home phone. Zabasearch or similar free service might yield a phone number in the results also. Depending upon how much information you have can you bypass the email and get at the phone number? How much money and effort is this worth? You can almost certainly buy this person's phone number a couple of minutes if you have enough information to confirm that you've got the right person.

[esllou]

he finally replied today to my clean e-mail from 4 mail domains...he only got two of them. He was mortified to hear that his mail account has been false positiving all his email. :-)

[D_Blackwell]

He was mortified to hear that his mail account has been false positiving all his email. :-)

That should cool the heat and give you extra maneuvering room to be the 'bigger man', to make him happy now, and get him back later as well.

Some of my best customers have been the result of flipping bad situations into positive situations. For example, a botched first order that is our fault, but corrected to the highest standard instantly, wins a confidence and loyalty that can't be bought. Yes, we lose on that first order, but mine the silver lining for all it's worth.

[esllou]

He's totally on board and his tone changed instantly when he realised what had been happening at his end. Now he's a happy camper.

[kaled]

I have the same problem with customers periodically. I only use plain text with no links and no images, etc. and still emails will be blocked on occasion.

Once, I had to contact a customer's ISP, and ask them to forward an email because they kept rejecting both my company accounts and a personal account that I use for such problems. The ISP claimed they had received loads of spam from IP adresses on the same block as my website but I checked with spamhaus.org and others and could find nothing untoward and the ISP cleared the problem.

Kaled.

[piatkow]

Had the the other way round. I used a Hotmail address to log a problem with my ISP and they failed to deliver the responses. It was very embarassing to discover this after a rather strongly worded phone conversation with the MD.