Important emails getting caught in spam filters

hotmail

[Raymond]

Our site's password retrieval email is getting caught by hotmail's spam filter. I have tried editing the layout of the email a few times. It even queries our database to make sure it greets the receiver by his first name. It still get grounded in the Junk folder.

A large percentage of our customers use hotmail as their primary address. Some customers are already complaining they are not receiving our emails. Is there a better way to write the email so it does not get caught by the filter?

[deejay]

Haven't used hotmail in a long time myself, but I doubt they publish the filter criteria anywhere.

How about signing up for an account yourself and sending your hotmail a bunch of test mails to see if you can identify the problem by a process of elimination.

[Raymond]

Thanks deejay. I already have a hotmail account which I am testing right now. Do you have some common spam filter criteria for me to start with?

My email is pretty basic. It looks like this:

Dear XYZ,

Hello, a request was made to retrieve your password at widget.com

Password - xyzyzyzyz

You are receiving this email because you reported that you could not remember your Widget Login Name or Password.
Note: Do not give out your personal information. Widget's staffs NEVER ask for your password

Regards,
Technical Support Staff
Widget.com

[Raymond]

I wrote a test email, just a plain letter with normal typos and smileys, just like one that you would write your friends. At the "sender", I used a gmail address. Basically, nothing contained in this email should be classified as junk, otherwise many of my friend's email will be in junk.

But this email STILL get caught by the spam filter? Does it have something to do with where my host is from?

[deejay]

hmm.. no, sorry.. haven't got a filter list. :) I get a fair amount of spam between my accounts, but not so much I can't deal with it manually in a couple of clicks.

I was just going to suggest you try sending from another domain in case somehow your domain has ended up on a blacklist.... great minds and all that :) Surprised to see a Gmail didn't get through!

[Warren]

With Hotmail, a banned domain doesn't even make it into the Junk Mail folder. It just doesn't appear.

As your new users sign up with a Hotmail account, try wording a message which explains the situation in a non-threatening manner and suggest to them that they provide a different email address.

Just a suggestion.