You know how it is\u2026 Things are going along smoothly in your ESP relationship, but little by little, it\u2019s getting a tad bit bumpy. A small glitch here, a tiny hang up here, and soon enough, the tactical side of your email marketing program is harder than it used to be.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The ESP platform has seemingly grown clunky, or maybe your team has. And that might leave you asking yourself, \u201cWhat\u2019s changed? Does the new guy not know the interface the way he should? Is my team slacking off? Are we doing something wrong?\u201d <\/p>\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n
I can\u2019t answer those questions for you, but I can tell you it might not be you. That\u2019s because email service providers<\/a> (ESPs) are not immune to performance issues<\/strong>. The little bumps and hiccups you\u2019re experiencing might have everything to do with ESP issues and nothing to do with your team at all.<\/p>\n\n\n\n If you\u2019re starting to wonder why things aren\u2019t as fast or easy as they used to be, here are three ways to recognize that your ESP is going through a decline in performance\u2026<\/p>\n\n\n\n Platform availability means exactly that: the platform is available to users. When an email service provider starts to suffer from performance issues, logging in will be one of the one of the first problems you\u2019ll notice. And if you can\u2019t log in to the system, how are you supposed to use it? It probably won\u2019t be so extreme that you can\u2019t log in at all, but if logging in means waiting a few minutes (or longer) to get in and get your work done, you have an issue.<\/p>\n\n\n\n It might also mean people can\u2019t subscribe to your email marketing at the front end of this setup, so you might want to look into that\u2026 Unlike you and your team members who have to get into the ESP, a potential subscriber who becomes a thwarted subscriber probably won\u2019t be back. Ever.<\/p>\n\n\n\n It could also be that you\u2019re logging into the system just fine, but then getting booted out while working within the platform. That\u2019s also an availability issue!<\/p>\n\n\n\n So maybe getting (and staying) in isn\u2019t a problem. That\u2019s good. But once you\u2019re in, you might find things go a little slooooower thaaaan theeeeey ussssssed tooooooo.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Indications of poor performance issues around platform response times include:<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u2022 Slow page load times Maybe you\u2019re logging in just fine, and maybe the platform is as speedy and reliable as it ever was, but the actual sending is now taking longer. A decline in ESP performance might be an issue if you\u2019re experiencing:<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u2022 Email send delays If any of these three kinds of performance issues are occurring, it\u2019s definitely time to take up the topic with the ESP (maybe have a look at your Service Level Agreement<\/a>, if you have one.) Every email service provider can have downtime, and we\u2019re not talking about the rare occasion when that happens. We\u2019re talking about a degrading in performance. You don\u2019t have the time to wait around while you\u2019re staring at a non-responsive screen.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Make sure the issues are originating with the ESP and not internally at your organization, then communicate your dissatisfaction to the ESP. Give them time to fix any performance problems.<\/p>\n\n\n\n But let\u2019s also acknowledge not every issue is a technical one\u2026<\/p>\n\n\n\n There are also the customer service performance issues. I\u2019ve yet to find actual numbers despite searching several times, but anecdotally, most organizations switch email service providers because of customer service issues.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Yes, customer service performance can decline just as technical performance can. Just as a new romance starts out with both parties on their best behavior, eager to please, it\u2019s easy to be sucked into thinking an ESP\u2019s customer service team will be a joy to work with\u2014especially when all you\u2019ve experienced is the sales side of things. Sales people are always nice and accommodating, remember. It might even be the migration and implementation stages go well, and the service you receive is prompt, practical and friendly.<\/p>\n\n\n\n But then things change\u2026 sometimes it\u2019s not that the customer service is poor but that the relationship between the client and the ESP is<\/a>. Our ESP therapy<\/a> approach offers some ways to repair and improve these kinds of malfunctioning relationships.<\/p>\n\n\n\n However, there are those times when the customer service is bad. Some examples of a decline in customer service performance might include:<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u2022 Calls aren\u2019t returned in a timely manner. Marketing moves at a rapid pace these days. You don\u2019t have time for performance issues that slow down your email marketing program. If things are slowing down, use this information above to determine if the issue is your ESP or not. If it is, take the steps you can to get them to shape up, but be willing to switch ESPs if necessary. And if the issues are actually internal, do what you can to improve, bringing in outside help if necessary to get your team up to speed.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" You know how it is\u2026 Things are going along smoothly in your ESP relationship, but little by little, it\u2019s getting a tad bit bumpy. A small glitch here, a tiny hang up here, and soon enough, the tactical side of your email marketing program is harder than it used to be. The ESP platform has […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":30,"featured_media":12212,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"_editorskit_title_hidden":false,"_editorskit_reading_time":0,"_editorskit_is_block_options_detached":false,"_editorskit_block_options_position":"{}","footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[],"dealstore":[],"coauthors":[538],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.emailvendorselection.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12208"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.emailvendorselection.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.emailvendorselection.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.emailvendorselection.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/30"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.emailvendorselection.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=12208"}],"version-history":[{"count":8,"href":"https:\/\/www.emailvendorselection.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12208\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":91961,"href":"https:\/\/www.emailvendorselection.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12208\/revisions\/91961"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.emailvendorselection.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/12212"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.emailvendorselection.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=12208"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.emailvendorselection.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=12208"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.emailvendorselection.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=12208"},{"taxonomy":"dealstore","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.emailvendorselection.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/dealstore?post=12208"},{"taxonomy":"author","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.emailvendorselection.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/coauthors?post=12208"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}<\/span>One: Issues with platform availability<\/span><\/h2>\n\n\n\n
<\/span>Two: Issues with platform response times<\/span><\/h2>\n\n\n\n
\u2022 Slow page response times
\u2022 Taking longer than normal to load files
\u2022 Timeouts when trying to refresh pages or lists
\u2022 Failed API calls
\u2022 And beyond slow performance, outright failures<\/p>\n\n\n\n<\/span>Three: Issues with the time it takes to send out emails<\/span><\/h2>\n\n\n\n
\u2022 Failed sends
\u2022 Automation failures
\u2022 Or delays in triggered email sends<\/p>\n\n\n\n<\/span>Four: Issues with service that sucks<\/span><\/h2>\n\n\n\n
\u2022 Issues aren\u2019t resolved quickly, or they\u2019re not resolved at all.
\u2022 Account managers don\u2019t reach out, aren\u2019t proactive in engaging the client.
\u2022 You\u2019re not informed about upgrades or changes until after the fact.
\u2022 Unexpected downtimes aren\u2019t explained.<\/p>\n\n\n\n