145: 7 confirmation email problems and solutions

Confirmation emails often contain crucial information – like details about a conference or a meeting. So what do you do when your confirmation emails aren’t getting through?

You have to find out why. There could be several reasons.

1. You’re using an unreliable email service provider (ESP) and your messages are getting blocked. The obvious solution is to get a better ESP.

2. You’re using a good ESP, but you don’t have things configured correctly. Once again, this is an easy fix. Talk to the delivery experts at your ESP and get your system set up correctly.

3. Your emails look spammy. Again, this is relatively easy to fix. Look up rules on effective subject lines, how to minimize HTML and javascript, optimize for mobile, etc. The internet is full of advice along these lines.

4. This is where it gets tougher. Your recipients work for companies that have very stringent rules on delivery. Some hospitals or utility companies have email security systems in place that open and scan all emails before they’re delivered to the recipient. Either you or your recipient are going to have to reach out to the IT department at these companies and make the case why your emails should get through. That’s a lot of work.

5. Your customers are giving you their junk email addresses. Everybody has at least one throwaway email address. You need to make a clear and persuasive case to your customer that it’s in their best interest to give you the email address they actually use. This means ensuring your emails are useful, and making it easy for recipients to regulate how much email they get from you. Most people fear that if they give you an email address, you’re going to send them junk three times a day. Alleviate that fear.

6. You don’t have effective calls to action in your confirmation emails. It’s not enough for an email to be delivered, or even to be delivered and read, if people aren’t taking the necessary actions. For example, if you’re selling an event, you need to make it very easy for the recipient to add that event to their calendar. I can hear the organizer complain, “We sent you the details. Why didn’t you show up?” Because your poor customer read ten thousand emails that day and didn’t have the bandwidth to make a special effort to add your information to their calendar. Make it easy.

7. This one is really tough. Your customers don’t read their emails. This is a growing problem. I was in the United Arab Emirates recently and people over there prefer WhatsApp to email, and the story goes that younger people don’t like or read their emails. Some people prefer texts.

This seems like an edge case, since everybody sends confirmation emails, including the king of all customer service and market testing – Amazon.com. But I have it on good authority that a lot of people simply don’t check their email. What do you do?

You might have to allow customers to choose their preferred method of communication. You can manage such a thing in a customer data platform, but realize that it’s going to be a lot of work. Every communication would have to be sent out in multiple ways – SMS, WhatsApp, Facebook messenger, and who knows what else.

That gets complicated, but that seems to be the nature of things these days. Everything’s fractured. When I produce this podcast, I upload it to LinkedIn, YouTube, X, Instagram, Spotify …. It’s a drag. But that’s the world we live in.

If any of this resonates with you – if you’re having these troubles and want to chat about it – give me a call.