Personal contacts at ISPs

A lot of senders seem to think that the secret to good delivery is having personal contacts at the ISPs. That way, when there is a delivery problem you can call up your friend at the ISP and inform them that they have made a mistake. In this little sender fantasy world, the ISP rep then apologizes profusely, unblocks the sender’s mail and perform magic to prevent a block from ever happening again.
Like many fantasies, it doesn’t usually happen that way.
The big ISPs are moving more and more to automated systems that prevent individual employees from interfering. This isn’t actually anything new. I was at a party once and sharing a drink with a representative of one of the big three ISPs. We were talking about a delivery problem one of my clients was having. The rep told me that the ISP did not have any way to actually whitelist around the filter that this client was getting trapped in. The reputation based filtering systems that some ISPs are building are much more performance based and will probably result in those ISPs who can make exceptions now not being able to do so in the future.
When looking for a good delivery person, the real question senders should be asking relate to the skills of the people doing the troubleshooting not who do they know. Does the delivery person have experience troubleshooting delivery? Can they actually resolve problems without having to rely on information from the ISPs? Given the response times at many ISPs, even for personal contacts, it’s often faster to listen to your delivery person than find the ISP rep who will apologize for the mistake.

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Delivery thoughts

I have spent quite a bit of time over the last few days working with new clients who are asking a lot of basic, but insightful questions about delivery problems. I have been trying to come up with a model of how spam filtering works, to help them visualize the issue and understand how the different choices they make change, either for better or worse, their delivery.
One model that I have been using is the bucket model. Spamfilters are like buckets. Everything a sender does that looks like what spammers do adds water to the bucket. Reputation is a hole in the bottom of the bucket that lets some of the water flow out. When the bucket overflows, delivery is impacted.
I think this analogy helps explain why fixing any technical issues is so important. The less water that is added to the bucket by technical problems, the less likely it is that the water from content filters will overflow the bucket.

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Following the script

Yesterday I talked about breaking through the script in order to escalate an issue. I briefly mentioned that I always start out following the script and using the channels ISPs have provided. There are a number of reasons to do this all of which benefit you, the sender.
First off, when you use the designated communication pathway at an ISP there is a record of your contact. There are procedures in place to make sure your communication is addressed and you get a response. When you’re escalating to an individual, you’re using their communication channel. IMs get lost, email ends up buried in the pile, other things come up and a week later you’re still waiting for your answer.
Secondly, when you use the designated communication pathway at an ISP your contact is logged and tracked. This means that if the person you’re used to dealing with gets another job, moves on or otherwise isn’t able to communicate with you any longer you have a history with that ISP. The next person to move into the position and deal with issues can see that you’re a legitimate sender with a history of dealing fairly and professionally with ISPs.
Thirdly, handling direct and personal escalations are often outside the official job description the people directly contacted. This means that when they come up for review, the work they’re doing for people who won’t use channels is not as important as the other work they do. Sure, they may get some credit for helping people with problems, but they may not get the review they should get. This hurts not just the senders who believe they shouldn’t have to follow channels but also those of us who do follow channels, particularly in the current business climate. Do you really want to lose that awesome person you use because some dork thought they were too good, too important to use the provided form and that awesome person lost their job because they didn’t meet their official work goals?
Fourth, you’re not the only one escalating. I had the opportunity to visit my friend Anna from AOL a few years ago. One morning both of us had to actually get some work done, so we were parked in her living room on laptops. I was astonished at the number of IM windows she was juggling constantly. We’re talking 20 – 30 separate windows open at once, many of them troubleshooting sender issues. After seeing that I do as much as possible through the official channels that AOL has provided. She is my friend, and a very good one, and I still avoid using her as a contact point unless there is some emergency.
Remember this next time you are searching for that email address of the person from that ISP that’s currently blocking your mail. Use the official communication channels where possible, and always use them first. Using back channels for issues where the intended workflow works causes a lot of overhead and doesn’t scale at all well.

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When the script doesn't work

DJ asks in the comments of Friday’s post:

As Seth said, great reminder. For those that have great processes/channels in place, I’ve found incredible success. However, sometimes I’ve found my answer on Twitter (i.e., @godaddyguy). Also, there have been times where I’ve gone through the script (i.e., shaw.ca) and have never heard back. What then?

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