Hi guys
After switching to Tessitura from our old ticketing system last summer, we have experienced a large increase of customers who doesn't receive the confirmation email with the PDF tickets attached. I have of course been in contact with RAMP support but they can just confirm that the emails are send from the system. We are also receiving the emails in our bcc inbox. Do any of you have experience with Adobe Acrobat and know if it could be something in the setup of the PDF files that triggers the spam filter to reject the emails?(some even don't receive the email in the spam) The file size is around 100kb so that shouldn't be the issue.
Have any of you experienced the same, or have any ideas what to do?
Thanks,
Kind regards Louise
Most times I have seen this the emails are either being block on the users email spam filter or it is sitting in their junk folder. I would start by asking, which email client the patrons are using since the junk/spam can be located in different areas. But, if you are receiving them in the box office bcc, do a test a purchase a ticket see where it ends up in gmail, yahoo, etc.. This way you can have or associates know how to troubleshoot over the phone. 95% of the time it is in the junk/spam folder.
Hi Travis
It's a great idea to create a test account for each type of mail providers and see if one of these is not receiving the tickets. And look at it in a more systematic way. From what we have experienced from our customers, it's mostly Hotmail and email addresses from companies that doesn't receive our PDF tickets.
Hi Louise,
Are you able to isolate the issue to a particular type of pdf attachment, or does the problem persist with other types of pdf's or e-mails without an attachment? If you are using a separate e-mail service provider for marketing or for other purposes in your organization, then you can try to e-mail the same pdf to the problem e-mail account to see what is happening.
Since you are using RAMP, you are most likely using a third party e-mail provider. If this is the case, and you have not registered their servers as authorized e-mail servers for your organization, some e-mail service providers will reject your e-mails before going any further. Big service providers, such as Google, MS (Hotmail), Yahoo, etc., which have ample resources, are actually pretty good with distinguishing what is spam and what is not. They do not immediately reject e-mails from third party providers. On the other hand, such providers ask their users, if they receive too many e-mails from your organization. If a sizable group responds positively, then they do not deliver your e-mail.
Some private companies (your sponsors?), mostly large, have very rigid spam filters of their own, and they will not allow third party e-mail providers or attachments, unless you have certified your e-mail service providers servers. Some may not even allow third parties no matter what the circumstances are.
There are also small companies, who use cheaper e-mail service providers that do not have the resources to be able to better distinguish spam from legitimate mail. We had bad experience with a local cable TV company one time, which also acts as a e-mail service provider. Most web hosting services provide free e-mail service, for example, and we had problems with patrons who use them, too. Of course, their services are cheaper, and that is what most small companies can afford.
We are a RAMP customer, too, and our parent organization does not want to certify outside serves, so we have difficulty reaching patrons using some service providers that I have described above. Fortunately, we are not using PAHT at the moment, so it is not effecting us that much.
My recommendation is to have the servers of your third party e-mail service provider certified, if that is the case and if you are permitted to do so, that is. Hope this helps you resolve the issue!
Ahmet Unal, IS Manager, UMSL - Touhill PAC
Hi Ahmet
Thank you very very much for your detailed explanation! That's a big help to move towards a solution to this issue. Or at least be able to give our customers a good explanation. I will get in contact with our e-mail providers again, and find out how the servers are certified.We only have issues with email with tickets attached (not a specific ticket design) If we send an email from the same email address with nothing attached, we don't experience any problems.