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 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.
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.
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
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
Which of the two responses do you find needlessly rude? To me they come off as curt certainly (which is a reasonable response to unsolicited mail), but not rude.
Everyone here is talking about Evan's response, so I may be misunderstanding something, but... If I'm billed for a dedicated email for years and it hasn't been provisioned for me, isn't that a major problem with the service?
> If I'm billed for a dedicated email for years and it hasn't been provisioned for me, isn't that a major problem with the service?
If that's true, yes. But it sounds plausible that the salesman was in error (also a problem, but less severe IMO):
> (Mail headers show the dedicated IP is functioning correctly, see "headers.png", where the outbound route matches the dedicated IP in the web interface.)
The only thing questionable I see here is that random sales employees seem to have access to customer information. It's not clear to me that the information they have access to is actually all that sensitive, though. Delivery rates and whether or not they've purchased a dedicated IP address? Eh, not sure that's a big deal.
Of course, we have no idea what other customer information this sales guy might have access to. And it's concerning that the information he had access to was incorrect, or he was somehow very badly misinterpreting it. Or, worse, he was confused and actually looking at another customer's dashboard, which, if true, would be pretty concerning. These things are perhaps worrisome, but it's not clear what was actually going on here.
I agree that the sales guy was more pushy than he should have been, seems like he was poorly-trained and not good at his job, and I too hate vague requests for agenda-less meetings, but this whole thing seems like an overreaction.
I would try to see this from Evan's perspective. Its easy to find next to useless Sales people, its harder to find a good customer. Evan is a busy guy and said please don't waste my time with a Sales call this is only for your own benefit and then got something else.
And I don't want you Sales people poking around in my SaaS setup or in my data.
In the comments he posts another interaction with a sales-person. Read his second reply... I'd be happy losing him too. (As a business owner I understand how we get spam like this all the time, and I almost always ignore it if it is clearly not targeted. If someone goes out of their way to list some real reasons why they like my company though, I would try to be a little nicer)
I agree with the sentiment, though not the execution.
Time is certainly the most valuable asset, and if someone is wasting my time/energy then I just ignore them.
If I see an email that's coming from a random sales-related channel and not from my support rep, I'm ignoring it. If I'm using a service incorrectly, and the email is vague and gives the same vibe when someone asks "Can I ask you a question?" on slack and waits for a response, then I'm not going to bother replying.
Waste your time, but don't expect the same from me.
Interesting 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 wait for a response?
This is the email equivalent. "Request too vague, I don't want to meet. Please specify further, unless this is a sales pitch, in which case, preemptively not interested." It's not passive aggressive, it's just business.
If I had received, "You're right, this is a low effort sales pitch, and it works", I don't think I'd bother replying. That is an extremely passive aggressive response.
> 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.
I think that it sounds harsh to say "I don't take meetings with no agenda", but is the right thing to do. Everyone wants your time, and it's the most valuable resource you possess, so being protective makes a lot of sense.
I wouldn't reply to someone's email and accuse them of "low-effort sales" or whatever. I'd just say "thanks, not interested" and then be internally mad at the low effort.
From the other side, I think that sales should be aware that these emails can read like "hey, we're going to shut you off unless you chat with me for 30 minutes" which is annoying. It would be nice to clarify that up front, to avoid the negative emotion associated with that prospect.
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.
Could the sales outreach be done better? Sure, but I've seen a lot worse and I feel like the initial email setting the tone with "This request is so vague and nonspecific..." was already more passive aggressive than it has to be and set the tone for the rest of the thread.
> Despite the incident in 2018, Mailgun appears to be giving an excessive level of access to customer data to employees who do not need it in 2020: Joe had access to specific customer domain information, and didn't hesitate to use it purely to try to sell me something. From this, I infer that it is likely routine that sales staff examine customer data without any kind of control or approval. I don't think this is acceptable.
Same thing happened with me on GoDaddy. I used GoDaddy's domain purchase system to negotiate and buy a domain, and transferred it to Cloudflare. A few years later, a GoDaddy buyer contacted me about buying the domain. The only way they could have gotten my email is to trawl through their past purchase records since the domain wasn't using any GoDaddy systems (DNS, email, etc) after it was transferred out.
I sent a very unhappy email back to them and I've been transferring my domains out to other registrars. I no longer recommend GoDaddy.
Of course GoDaddy is scummy, but this is not the only way your information could have been obtained. During the transfer out period, you must provide unmasked contact info. There are services that crawl this info and provide a full historical ownership history. So if your information was ever available in whois, including during the short transfer window, it has been crawled.
That said GoDaddy has never been a good registrar anyway.
I'm just going by what you are saying: that not using GoDaddy email means they couldn't have contacted you. Not using GoDaddy email service is irrelevant and your mention of it at all implies you aren't aware of how your information can get out. It's certainly possible to prevent it but you're not giving the vibe that you understand this.
From the comments it seems like there's a bit of an information gap in terms of how email service providers (ESPs) like Mailgun operate, what data they must have routine access to, and how the space evolved to make money (this last part of my info is dated as I left the space about a decade ago).
First, ESPs send email on a client's behalf. One of the primary benefits of using an ESP is co-opting their email reputation and their contacts with real time blacklist (RBL) operators, postmaster organizations at major email providers and third party email reputation groups. A good reputation keeps a sender's email out of the junk folder (or worse refused/dropped on the floor) and is really all most folks care about (especially at an API driven company like Mailgun).
In order to do all of the above, an ESP needs access to the details of the email that's being sent, including recipient email addresses and the contents of the message being sent. This is because both of those things can potentially be dangerous and the ESP is the ultimate responsible party in the eyes of the receiving email provider (i.e. Google holds Mailgun as the responsible party for what Phabricator sends).
Now, as to this sales call, sometime ago (circa ~2004 I guess) it became apparent that ESPs could work with their problematic clients to improve their sending habits, thereby improving their reputation and collect more money from the client in the process (via either direct consulting fees or increased sending volume). This kind of win-win made a lot of sense, but as the price-per-email sent was dropping ESPs were looking for ways to reliably generate more revenue and, well, "deliverability consulting" became a thing. My guess is that this is what this email exchange was about, and like any consulting effort, it's only as good as the last interaction and here I agree with Evan that "Joe" fumbled the ball fairly badly.
Personally, I would have just reached out to Mailgun support and asked what's up with the incorrect billing and Joe's problematic responses, but that doesn't appear to have been Evan's first choice.
Source for the industry insider info is that I used to run the technical side of a small ESP from about 2003 to 2009, was an active participant in MAAWG and generally had to work with my peers across orgs to navigate deliverability problems regularly.
This Evan guy reminds me of the worst customers I have: rude, know-it all, overreacting. Just because you're a customer you're not entitled to be an ass.
Of course they have data about the customer performance, it's part of their job, it doesn't mean it has access to private data.
With the caveat that I know nothing about mailgun, so may have misunderstood parts of the conversation, it sounds, to me, like the salesman did a few very helpful things...
1. Pointed out that the user had been spending money on a service which was not actually being provided. Presumably, mailgun would correct this error.
2. Exposed that the "mail success rate" which the user was seeing might not be the full story.
3. Showed the user that he was paying for suppressed emails, so could (presumably) save some coin by cleaning up his list. (Note that the cost of cleaning might be higher than the extra payments, but good to know that there's a cost to suppressed emails so that the user can make a judgement.)
This rep was honest ("it was a template"), gave a specific agenda when asked, and gave useful information. Complaining that your rep has access to your data when that's his entire job is ridiculous. Data security best practices are that data should be provided on a "need to know" basis. In order to provide the above 3 values, the rep needs access to that data.
As possible explanation of the initial response, I understand the frustration as I get dozens of these 'how does Tuesday at 3', 'time for a call next week?', etc emails every week as part of sleazy companies' spam email drip campaigns to more than one of my email accounts. That said, continuing to send email to 30,000 suppressed email addresses means you need to spend some time cleaning out old emails from your list. I do this semi-regularly for the confirmed opt-in list for PortableApps.com which is sent via mailgun.
I don’t know, this interaction kind of makes me like Mailgun. Sounds like they were seeing some weird stuff with a customer and reached out to see what was up. That’s what I want out of an email infrastructure provider. It’s hard to maintain high deliverability if you don’t keep careful tabs on things.
I was kind of expecting the complaint to be about how the API only allows a single API key (which is terrible for multiple projects), and doesn't allow generating multiple API keys w/ multiple types of access (kind of like what Cloudflare's API allows you to do)
You can use SMTP [1] if you need something like that . While SMTP technically slower than REST, practically it doesn't matter if your application processes mailjobs in forked background threads or a queue, also most ESPs would rate limit outgoing email after it reaches their system to prevent abuse.
the benefit is also no custom code or needing to add their SDK, you can replace the service by simply replacing the credentials, probably without even a code deployment if you store credentials in env.
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.
Well, 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.
[+] [-] jonathonf|4 years ago|reply
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.
[+] [-] boc|4 years ago|reply
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.
[+] [-] hitekker|4 years ago|reply
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
[+] [-] unknown|4 years ago|reply
[deleted]
[+] [-] hash872|4 years ago|reply
[+] [-] gizmo|4 years ago|reply
[+] [-] stickfigure|4 years ago|reply
I get a half-dozen emails like this every week. Most I ignore. If I'm feeling uncharitable I mark it as spam.
[+] [-] smokey_circles|4 years ago|reply
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
[+] [-] aidenn0|4 years ago|reply
[+] [-] stavros|4 years ago|reply
[+] [-] davidcuddeback|4 years ago|reply
If that's true, yes. But it sounds plausible that the salesman was in error (also a problem, but less severe IMO):
> (Mail headers show the dedicated IP is functioning correctly, see "headers.png", where the outbound route matches the dedicated IP in the web interface.)
[+] [-] kelnos|4 years ago|reply
Of course, we have no idea what other customer information this sales guy might have access to. And it's concerning that the information he had access to was incorrect, or he was somehow very badly misinterpreting it. Or, worse, he was confused and actually looking at another customer's dashboard, which, if true, would be pretty concerning. These things are perhaps worrisome, but it's not clear what was actually going on here.
I agree that the sales guy was more pushy than he should have been, seems like he was poorly-trained and not good at his job, and I too hate vague requests for agenda-less meetings, but this whole thing seems like an overreaction.
[+] [-] closewith|4 years ago|reply
[+] [-] dioxide|4 years ago|reply
[+] [-] annoyingnoob|4 years ago|reply
And I don't want you Sales people poking around in my SaaS setup or in my data.
[+] [-] cyral|4 years ago|reply
[+] [-] boomer918|4 years ago|reply
[+] [-] me_me_mu_mu|4 years ago|reply
Time is certainly the most valuable asset, and if someone is wasting my time/energy then I just ignore them.
If I see an email that's coming from a random sales-related channel and not from my support rep, I'm ignoring it. If I'm using a service incorrectly, and the email is vague and gives the same vibe when someone asks "Can I ask you a question?" on slack and waits for a response, then I'm not going to bother replying.
Waste your time, but don't expect the same from me.
[+] [-] bjt2n3904|4 years ago|reply
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 wait for a response?
This is the email equivalent. "Request too vague, I don't want to meet. Please specify further, unless this is a sales pitch, in which case, preemptively not interested." It's not passive aggressive, it's just business.
If I had received, "You're right, this is a low effort sales pitch, and it works", I don't think I'd bother replying. That is an extremely passive aggressive response.
[+] [-] unknown|4 years ago|reply
[deleted]
[+] [-] jacobr1|4 years ago|reply
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.
[+] [-] tebbers|4 years ago|reply
[+] [-] jrockway|4 years ago|reply
I wouldn't reply to someone's email and accuse them of "low-effort sales" or whatever. I'd just say "thanks, not interested" and then be internally mad at the low effort.
From the other side, I think that sales should be aware that these emails can read like "hey, we're going to shut you off unless you chat with me for 30 minutes" which is annoying. It would be nice to clarify that up front, to avoid the negative emotion associated with that prospect.
[+] [-] hdjjhhvvhga|4 years ago|reply
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.
[+] [-] dewey|4 years ago|reply
Could the sales outreach be done better? Sure, but I've seen a lot worse and I feel like the initial email setting the tone with "This request is so vague and nonspecific..." was already more passive aggressive than it has to be and set the tone for the rest of the thread.
[+] [-] yuubi|4 years ago|reply
[+] [-] JustARandomGuy|4 years ago|reply
Same thing happened with me on GoDaddy. I used GoDaddy's domain purchase system to negotiate and buy a domain, and transferred it to Cloudflare. A few years later, a GoDaddy buyer contacted me about buying the domain. The only way they could have gotten my email is to trawl through their past purchase records since the domain wasn't using any GoDaddy systems (DNS, email, etc) after it was transferred out.
I sent a very unhappy email back to them and I've been transferring my domains out to other registrars. I no longer recommend GoDaddy.
[+] [-] jiveturkey|4 years ago|reply
That said GoDaddy has never been a good registrar anyway.
I'm just going by what you are saying: that not using GoDaddy email means they couldn't have contacted you. Not using GoDaddy email service is irrelevant and your mention of it at all implies you aren't aware of how your information can get out. It's certainly possible to prevent it but you're not giving the vibe that you understand this.
[+] [-] jqcoffey|4 years ago|reply
First, ESPs send email on a client's behalf. One of the primary benefits of using an ESP is co-opting their email reputation and their contacts with real time blacklist (RBL) operators, postmaster organizations at major email providers and third party email reputation groups. A good reputation keeps a sender's email out of the junk folder (or worse refused/dropped on the floor) and is really all most folks care about (especially at an API driven company like Mailgun).
In order to do all of the above, an ESP needs access to the details of the email that's being sent, including recipient email addresses and the contents of the message being sent. This is because both of those things can potentially be dangerous and the ESP is the ultimate responsible party in the eyes of the receiving email provider (i.e. Google holds Mailgun as the responsible party for what Phabricator sends).
Now, as to this sales call, sometime ago (circa ~2004 I guess) it became apparent that ESPs could work with their problematic clients to improve their sending habits, thereby improving their reputation and collect more money from the client in the process (via either direct consulting fees or increased sending volume). This kind of win-win made a lot of sense, but as the price-per-email sent was dropping ESPs were looking for ways to reliably generate more revenue and, well, "deliverability consulting" became a thing. My guess is that this is what this email exchange was about, and like any consulting effort, it's only as good as the last interaction and here I agree with Evan that "Joe" fumbled the ball fairly badly.
Personally, I would have just reached out to Mailgun support and asked what's up with the incorrect billing and Joe's problematic responses, but that doesn't appear to have been Evan's first choice.
Source for the industry insider info is that I used to run the technical side of a small ESP from about 2003 to 2009, was an active participant in MAAWG and generally had to work with my peers across orgs to navigate deliverability problems regularly.
[+] [-] mikeryan|4 years ago|reply
[+] [-] make_it_sure|4 years ago|reply
Of course they have data about the customer performance, it's part of their job, it doesn't mean it has access to private data.
[+] [-] xeromal|4 years ago|reply
[+] [-] biggestdummy|4 years ago|reply
This rep was honest ("it was a template"), gave a specific agenda when asked, and gave useful information. Complaining that your rep has access to your data when that's his entire job is ridiculous. Data security best practices are that data should be provided on a "need to know" basis. In order to provide the above 3 values, the rep needs access to that data.
[+] [-] napsterbr|4 years ago|reply
[+] [-] JamesCoyne|4 years ago|reply
[+] [-] JohnTHaller|4 years ago|reply
[+] [-] snowwrestler|4 years ago|reply
[+] [-] yawnxyz|4 years ago|reply
[+] [-] manquer|4 years ago|reply
the benefit is also no custom code or needing to add their SDK, you can replace the service by simply replacing the credentials, probably without even a code deployment if you store credentials in env.
[1] https://help.mailgun.com/hc/en-us/articles/203409084-How-do-...
[+] [-] ganeshkrishnan|4 years ago|reply
Would definitely recommend mailgun/sendgrid over gsuite for emails and not entirely agree with this blog post.
[+] [-] zippergz|4 years ago|reply
[+] [-] niftylettuce|4 years ago|reply
[+] [-] cpressland|4 years ago|reply
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.