Lol why does this guy complaining of a salesperson emailing them end up on top page of HN?
Like honestly, who the duck cares?
Discourage use of Mailgun as a mail provider
31–40 of 99 posts
Re: Discourage use of Mailgun as a mail provider
#32I'm surprised by the other comments here that I'm in the minority thinking that the sales approach was pretty terrible. You're trying to sell something you don't understand to a company you don't understand. Why? If you actually want to "help" a company (by selling them your product... not really sure how that's "helping", but...) then at least do some research into the company and provide something that looks useful rather than some crappy "Hi, I like you, let's chat!"
In this specific case, someone somewhere is lying about services being provided. If that's sales then that's not great. If that's accounts/billing then that's probably worse. In any case it's a pretty terrible look for the company concerned, and understandably results in an erosion of trust.
Re: Discourage use of Mailgun as a mail provider
#33Evan, your response was needlessly rude, and if I were Mailgun I'd let you go as a customer. The idea that you'd drop a company over this is overly dramatic. I would encourage you to be nicer to relatively low-level employees, and Joe did seem reasonably knowledgeable about Mailgun's processes
You don’t fire a customer for being testy. It’s way disproportionate and if customers are unhappy you want to know this. Rude feedback is still feedback, and most businesses struggle to get honest feedback because most people are just way too nice
Re: Discourage use of Mailgun as a mail provider
#34Well, we use Mailgun at work and it’s pretty great. I’ve only ever had one issue with it and it and their support was outstanding.
As somebody who used to work in enterprise support, I don’t see them as having done anything wrong here. It’s just somebody reaching out to do their job.
Re: Discourage use of Mailgun as a mail provider
#35Evan, your response was needlessly rude, and if I were Mailgun I'd let you go as a customer. The idea that you'd drop a company over this is overly dramatic. I would encourage you to be nicer to relatively low-level employees, and Joe did seem reasonably knowledgeable about Mailgun's processes
It comes across as desperate for outrage. "One of my vendors tried to upsell me", the horror!
I get a half-dozen emails like this every week. Most I ignore. If I'm feeling uncharitable I mark it as spam.
Re: Discourage use of Mailgun as a mail provider
#36Sorry to say but Evan does not come across as particularly pleasant or likeable to anyone he corresponds with. Common courtesy would go a long way.
> Common courtesy would go a long way. I don't believe this applies to salesmen, though. They're trained to exploit all holes related to human decency and courtesy. They expect a polite person will not reject an invitation (to a meeting they absolutely don't need and which serves only one party) and so on.
Salespeople are people too. They deserve some courtesy until they step over a line. I will always try to be polite on my first reply, if the salesperson actually wrote me something directly. If it was just a spammy mail merge blast, then I will ignore the bot. Even knowing they are using sales techniques, I try to not be a jerk. Even though I agree with the author of the original post, he comes off a low EQ.
Re: Discourage use of Mailgun as a mail provider
#37I went from mailgun to gsuite. costs went up 3x and almost all of my emails are going to spam folders even when the contact and I have been emailing each other for ages.
Would definitely recommend mailgun/sendgrid over gsuite for emails and not entirely agree with this blog post.
Re: Discourage use of Mailgun as a mail provider
#38Interesting read. While the general consensus on the comments here so far are "why be so rude" -- I don't think this was rude at all. I'd be similarly upset if I was treated this way by someone from marketing. Edit: From a second read, I really don't see any of this as rude. You know how it's poor etiquette to start a chat message with "Hey, do you have a moment?", And it's much better to just write the question and…
> You know how it's poor etiquette to start a chat message with "Hey, do you have a moment?"
I think this is the difference. For plenty of people, this is a NOT a widely held norm. It really IS ok to just start a chat or email with a "Hey, do you have a moment?"
That doesn't mean it should be ok. We probably all would be better off providing more context for more effective communication. But standards here seem to vary widely.
Re: Discourage use of Mailgun as a mail provider
#39I went from mailgun to gsuite. costs went up 3x and almost all of my emails are going to spam folders even when the contact and I have been emailing each other for ages. Would definitely recommend mailgun/sendgrid over gsuite for emails and not entirely agree with this blog post.
What are you talking about? The use cases for Mailgun and gsuite have effectively no overlap.
Re: Discourage use of Mailgun as a mail provider
#40I'm surprised by the other comments here that I'm in the minority thinking that the sales approach was pretty terrible. You're trying to sell something you don't understand to a company you don't understand. Why? If you actually want to "help" a company (by selling them your product... not really sure how that's "helping", but...) then at least do some research into the company and provide something that looks useful…
Counterpoint is that Mailgun likely had flagged the account (80% deliverability is bad) and wanted to open a line of communication without coming across as hostile. It wasn't a sales opportunity, it was a "you need to improve" email wrapped in a friendly opening.
Evan then replied taking a hostile footing, which resulted in the sale rep backing up his opening with a list of agenda items (list cleaning, dedicated IP address, etc).
At this point it became a purely defensive line-by-line encounter because egos got involved once the Mailgun rep listed the real reasons he was writing.
IMO this is a massive overreaction and not a good look for the blog author.