"Send a Message" Function on LCR

[sebastian.buck]

Mailchimp has 1500 employees focused primarily on email and communication delivery. The Church does not. I don't want to suggest that more employees makes things easier, but I think it's unfair to compare the Church, whose primary mission isn't email and communication delivery, to a company that's solely focused on that.

Sure. But MailChimp also has way more emails to send out …. and it was only an example. There are countless other similar email list operators out there, small and big, that are not experiencing similar issues. And the issues with the email system of the church have been persisting for at least half a decade now. And emails sent over LCR are not sent out to millions of recipients. They reach a few hundred to maybe a thousand recipients at best.

[jtjacks]

Mailchimp doesn't have 1500 employees managing their email system.
Until recently, my son managed the team (of 2) who managed the email system for Wish.com. they send out hundreds of millions of emails a week. Before that, he managed the 3 person team who handled email for LinkedIn. He used to work for church IT. We discuss the church's issues regularly (he is also a stake IT specialist).

The challenge with email is that it is not a single goal to attain. It is an ongoing "dance" with a lot of outside parties. It does take constant effort and every time you think it is fixed, somebody will break it again. It looks like church IT has made some progress (thank you!) but has more work to do.

[russellhltn]

I am sorry, but if email list operators like MailChimp and others are able to deliver millions of newsletters successfully in a consistent manner the church should be able to do it as well.

The church is doing better, but for a long time they wouldn't follow convention for mass emails. For example, it took them a long time to allow members to opt out of emails from LCR and to provide those instructions at the bottom of each email. Some frustrated members would mark them as spam. So far, I've not heard if the church has made those same controls available to leadership for those members who have asked for "no contact".

Also, they used to keep sending emails after being informed by the ISP that the address was no good. I think they've taken steps there as well.

I believe that jtjacks' description as "a dance" is accurate. And the church has not been a good dance partner. They've improved, but I'm not sure how well they're doing. There's a fair amount of bad reputation to be undone. The other providers mentioned have taken the proper steps from the beginning and have a good reputation as a reliable dance partner.

[claytonf]

Could you at least update the notice to read from "has been problematic for the past several weeks" to "has been broken for over a year?" Truth in advertising and all?

The workarounds recommended have never had any effect. I know for certain that nearly all e-mails to hotmail and yahoo mailboxes go undelivered. They aren't going to spam folders and they aren't bounced. I'm not sure if there are other email providers that also fail. I check periodically by sending a test message to my spouse at hotmail and yahoo addresses I've created. As of today, still no deliveries. I wish I could get more members to jump ship on hotmail and yahoo accounts, but that falls on deaf ears.

One third of our ward has yahoo or hotmail addresses. Not being able to communicate with such a large proportion of our ward is very limiting. Is there any hope for a fix?

-Clayton Fuller

[jdlessley]

Could you at least update the notice to read from "has been problematic for the past several weeks" to "has been broken for over a year?" Truth in advertising and all?

The person/people you are addressing this to will most likely not see your post. The forum is primarily user-to-user discussion and support. Normally I would say to submit your feedback using the feedback link found at the bottom of most Church web pages, but the issues have been being worked for longer that a few years.

[claytonf]

Thank you for the advice.

[russellhltn]

Some things you can try:
Remove all known bad emails from member's contact information. Especially any that are invalid because of adding something like "no_contact" to avoid sending to those people. Repeatedly sending to bad addresses at a valid domain causes problems with that domain provider.

If anyone has expressed a desire to be left out of the emails, ask them to make sure "Local Leader Email" is unchecked in their email subscriptions. Having members mark emails as spam causes problems.

You may not see results right away.

[sebastian.buck]

Some things you can try:

Sorry, no! This problem has been persisting for years. Nothing we can do will change anything. The issue has to be fixed by the IT department. And they won’t fix it.

[russellhltn]

The issue has to be fixed by the IT department. And they won’t fix it.

It's not an IT issue. Some of the actions of members and local leadership piled onto policy decisions. When people mark unwanted emails as spam, is the provider supposed to ignore that just because it comes from "the church"? No, they don't.

Likewise, for a time it was advocated to alter the email for members who didn't want to to receive emails by adding "no contact" to the email to make it invalid. But if sent to a valid domain, it makes the church look bad.

I'm pointing out things that are in the control of local membership. Coming here to complain won't accomplish anything. The decision makers do not visit here. And the problem has gone on long enough that they're already aware of it.

[sebastian.buck]

It's not an IT issue.

Well, it is. As mentioned before email list providers like MailChimp and others manage email lists far more exhaustive than the church and they manage to get their emails out to the recipients consistently and reliably. Yes , sure, they also employ far more staff. But it is an IT issue.