Ethics question pertaining to work related text messages to non work related devices.

[njdubois]

Some of you may have seen one of my many posts about email issues.  Some users don't get them, and I have determined it is probably because we are marked as spam.

 

We are a service that grades sales team members on their phone skills.  Listening to pre-recorded calls, grading and uploading them to our site, and then another part of our business looks them over and sometimes leaves a message that then get's forwarded to this persons work email.

 

I have determined there is ways to get marked as spam as default by not having an opt out link.  This is not an option, these sales members employer has opted in, and the emails are going to work related accounts hosted at that employer.  Also, if one of these staff members is not so bright, or disgruntled they may mark us as spam anyways.  The bottom line is that we have very little control over whether we are or are not marked as spam.

 

So we want to start looking into sending text messages and this is where I start to question how good of an idea this is.

 

First off, if it was me, and the messages where being sent to a device that my employer did not provide, I would in no way want work related text messages coming to me.  Unless there is a vested interest in getting them.  IE, I'm the boss at this place and am always on the clock.  What if you are on the bottom?  It's just a job for you.

 

What if it is a pre-paid device, text messages cost money.  What then?  What if they don't even have, or want a cell phone?

 

The short of it is this.  If I'm at a job that is just another job, and this employer tells me that I have to get these messages.  I'm going to look for another job.  I see the organizations having continuous issues and complaints from their employees.  Thus us as a business having issues keeping clients.

 

What am I getting into here?  What are your opinions on this matter?  What are your recommendations as to alerting users of something on our site that we can rest assured are being received 100% of the time?

 

Thanks!

 

Nick

[Psycho]

I doubt people are going to quit their job over a text message. But, it would be important to know how frequently these messages would be received. Also, what makes you think that text messages would automatically be received? A user can indicate in their phone to block messages from certain senders - which is no different than the user marking the email as spam. I think you are just trading one problem for another.

 

There are a lot of things that can be done to help prevent email from being indicated as spam (not just an opt out link). It's not something I am an expert in, but you may need to do some research. But, even if you do your due diligence, they can still be targeted as spam on different levels: 1: There could be an intermediary service that verifies emails before they hit the email server or there could be software of the email server to verify messages, 2: The email client can mark messages as spam, and 3: The user can mark messages as spam. You should work with the customers to have them put in exceptions on #1 for email coming from you. #2 should be verified through testing of some major email clients. But, you can also provide instructions on adding your emails to the exclusion list in the different email clients. And, there is nothing you can do with #3, but even if you send a text you can't make the person read the email. That seems like something the firm should mandate.

[njdubois]

Thank you so much.  You bring up interesting points that I am going to forward to those that are in charge!

 

About emails/spam, just a second before your message, I got a reply to another forum post here about the email issue.  You can see it here:

http://forums.phpfreaks.com/topic/288965-in-need-of-a-miracle-some-emails-still-not-being-received/?do=findComment&comment=1481794

 

Fatsol puts forth, front and center how difficult emails to inbox can be!

 

Thanks again for your reply, I hope it helps the bosses to really think about text messages.

 

Nick

[Psycho]

Like I said, there are a LOT of different things that can affect what is identified as SPAM. We found that some email servers do a check of the domain on the "From" address of the email and then see if the originating server that sent the email is the "authorized" one for that domain. We had an SMTP server just for our production environment that was separate from our company email server and had to open ports and update DNS records to prevent that issue.

 

Some of the issues are rather complicated and one which I am not interested in understanding.

[.josh]

What am I getting into here? What are your opinions on this matter? What are your recommendations as to alerting users of something on our site that we can rest assured are being received 100% of the time?

I would say you need to remove this expectation. Bottom line is there's no way to guarantee what you are sending out is received, so it's pretty silly think that you can achieve this, and it's false advertising to claim that you can.

 

Also, trying to get around people marking your emails as spam so that they can receive your emails shouldn't be your problem. If the client wants to receive emails, they should provide you with an email that they won't block you from. If they are worried that their employees will somehow prevent them from seeing what you send them, that's THEIR problem, not yours.

 

If you don't already offer this, I'd make the info available on my site for them to login and view. Also make viewable a log of when emails were sent out. And then tell them if they don't receive the email, that's on them. It's not your job to ensure their employees aren't blocking your emails so the boss can't see them.