How to Handle Complainers
No matter how meticulious you are on your privacy policy, unsubscribe, and confirmation email, you will eventually have a few complainers. Have no fear, ISPs know this as well. All complaints are not created equal. They range from the user who thinks he mistakingly signed up to your newsletter to bonafide lawsuits. I had the experience of dealing with the worst of these type of complaints so I want to discuss what to do when you recieve them.
The first thing to check is your unsubscribe information. Do you have an active, working unsubscribe and is your mailing system removing users when they click on the unsubscribe button? It’s always good to do frequent checks, since an invalid remove link is aganist the law and can result in a huge fine. Additionally, you need to make sure your physical address remove is posted correctly. By physical remove I mean an active postal address. it should look something like this:
To unsubscribe from all future newsletters please click (unsubscribe link here), or write to:
Unsubscribe ME
2983 Mystreet
Austin, TX 78759
Yes, and believe it or not, people DO pay the postage fee to send a letter for unsubscribe removal. At my peak I would get about 2 to 3 of these a month.
If your unsubscribe message is doing its job then you need to access the level of threat the complainer is. Alot of times I will recieve messages like:
Screw you spammer!
I’ll k*ll you, remove me
I did not sign up to this spam!
When I do recieve these types of complaints I remove immediantly. Do not waste your time replying back to these guys. It will only waste both parties time and start a never ending flame war of who is wrong or who is right. It is possible that someone else using their email information signed up to your newsletter or offers. Move on and live to fight another day.
Now for the more serious issues. Their could be a time during your email marketing career when you face the worst of complaints, a lawsuit. This is Amercia, anybody can sue anyone for anything. This is why it is so important to make sure your privacy policy is clear and that you save ALL user subscribe information. By subscribe information I mean, first/last name, addresss, website signed up to, ip, and timestamp. This has happened to me in what was a clear extorition attempt. It’s highly unlikely that any lawsuit of this matter would go to court unless you are clearly violating the law. If you do recieve a threat or a lawsuit, find out what the other party wants and try as best as you can to come to a win/win situation.
Filed under: Inbox Truth