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Discourage use of Mailgun as a mail provider

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Re: Discourage use of Mailgun as a mail provider

#91

Post by boc »

csydas wrote: post #62
boc wrote: post #40

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 a…

I would disagree with this read based on the opening email from Mailgun. Especially for an "out of the blue" email, without further context I would personally just delete such an email and forget about it as I really have trouble giving a good faith reading to such a vague email. The Subject and the content really lack actual content, and the points that I find ineffective are: - Unclear/seemingly random subject; the…

I guess it's all about your perspective on how to interact with strangers via email. For me, I think it's best to keep an open mind and have empathy with someone reaching out instead of demeaning them for a strategy that they personally didn't craft. The rep saying "You're right, it's a low effort sales template" was his way of saying that it's not his preferred choice either, but he has his hands tied and this is how he puts food on the table.

It just seems really weird to take all of that and then jump to a massive conclusion that everyone should stop using Mailgun as a mail provider. The author took an innocuous email, created a battle which he won, and then decided to start a war.

I'm less taking issue with the absolute specifics of the email and more with the decision to turn this into something I'm reading about on the front page of HN.

Re: Discourage use of Mailgun as a mail provider

#92

Post by redis_mlc »

gizmo wrote: post #33
hash872 wrote: post #10

Evan, 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

Parent doesn't know what he's talking about.

I've actually had a prospect tell me on the phone, "If you lose an email, I will sue you for $50,000 for each email that's undelivered."

Between that example and "testy" are a lot of undesirable prospects and customers.

Re: Discourage use of Mailgun as a mail provider

#93

Post by hitekker »

jonathonf wrote: post #32

I'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…

Same. "Blame the customer"/"coddle the salesman" is a rather strange sentiment to encounter on Hacker News of all places.

I guess some founders here owe their careers to scummy sales tactics. Or are just fantasizing about getting rid of the pesky people who pay them money

Re: Discourage use of Mailgun as a mail provider

#94

Post by ganeshkrishnan »

niftylettuce wrote: post #58
ganeshkrishnan wrote: post #37

I 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.

I built https://forwardemail.net as the costs went up and I needed a cheaper alternative for my domains. Any questions feel free to email me, nick@forwardemail.net

I would love to use it. The only challenge for me is that hubspot only sends emails via gmail/gsuite

Re: Discourage use of Mailgun as a mail provider

#95

Post by ganeshkrishnan »

mikeryan wrote: post #57
ganeshkrishnan wrote: post #50

Earlier quoted context omitted.

both send emails and both allow user email creation (with mailgun it was virtual email forwarded to personal email). I had to switch to gsuite because hubspot doenst allow external smtp server to send out emails and we couldnt use mailgun.

If you started sending Hubspot marketing or CRM emails directly from Gsuite its going to get marked as Spam, thats the whole point of using a transactional service. I've had multiple clients in the past who have decided to send "Check out my new App!" emails to their entire contact list from Gmail who shortly found out the hard way that it caused all their emails to start being marked as Spam. Don't use Gmail like th…

I only send out limited transactional emails via gmail and thats only because hubspot only supports sending email by connecting gmail. For some absurd reason they dont allow SMTP servers for sending emails.

Since hubspot is our CRM I had to start using gsuite. The problem is is that the emails from hubspot land in the inbox. BUT the emails from my outlook that I type it out land in people's spam folder.

One reason why I have zero concerns with googles overarching data privacy issue is that I can see how stupid their AI /algorithms are. And with more noise it just gets worse not better.

Re: Discourage use of Mailgun as a mail provider

#97

Post by smokey_circles »

hash872 wrote: post #10

Evan, 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

Genuinely curious how you arrived here.

1. My time is valuable to me. Low effort sales templates are offensive in this light.

2. Joe never answered about why he has different metrics than Evan. You're just going to waltz past that point? Someone in mailgun is lying.

3. Nothing about this was rude or dramatic. Send me an email chain like this, I'd be happy to demonstrate what rude looks like. Waste my time at your own peril

Re: Discourage use of Mailgun as a mail provider

#98

Post by tomjen3 »

boc wrote: post #40
jonathonf wrote: post #32

I'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 a…

Mailgun is happy he even wrote back on that email. If it looks like a template, why even bother answering?

Re: Discourage use of Mailgun as a mail provider

#99

Post by tomjen3 »

manquer wrote: post #84
mrsuprawsm wrote: post #69

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Calling out aggressive and uninvited outreach from a vendor is extremely different from "the customer is always right" mentality. The two things are not the same.

Calling out to whom thou ? Is a junior sales rep in any position to effect change ? Why take it out on him ?. Nobody is saying feedback is bad , but give to someone who can actually do something about it.

A sales rep should be able to change his template, especially if it causes angry customers.
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