Unreliable email
On Monday morning, I got a call from a client. "How's the translation coming?" she asked.
"Fine," I replied. "I'll be sending you the translation a few hours early."
"Really?" she asked. "Even that second set of files I sent you?"
At this point I began to feel the symptoms of panic setting in. "What files?" I asked.
"The ones I emailed you on Friday. You didn't tell me there were any problems, so I assumed you'd have the translations by tomorrow."
The problem was, I hadn't received any files. Email from my clients is configured to pass through my spam filters unchecked, but I looked in my spam folder anyway. Not there. I checked my email server — nothing. The email had apparently vanished into thin Ether.
I've had lost emails a couple of times with this particular client. A few months ago, the client called me up and asked if I'd received the file they just sent me. I told them that I hadn't, so they put it on their server for me to download. The email in question did reach me, eventually — about a week later!
Always make sure
In this case, the client forgot to make sure that I received the files. Since I've had experience with lost emails in the past, I always email confirmation that I've received files. If somebody sending me files doesn't receive confirmation, they should always call or email to confirm receipt.
Fortunately, the deadline turned out to be a bit more flexible than the client asked for originally, and I was able to fit in the translation of the extra files. But this drove home for me the need to always confirm receipt of files via email, and to always make sure that your recipient sends you a confirmation.
Of course, this can be taken too far. A (thankfully ex-)client used to call me to tell me they were going to send me a file, then call me five minutes later to make sure I'd gotten it.
Alternatives to email
There are of course alternatives to exchanging files via email, but email is just so much more convenient.
A lot of my clients get around the unreliability of email by setting up their own file servers for securely exchanging files. The problem with these is that they tend to be quirky, buggy, and not very user friendly.
There's also secure ftp, which has the advantage of being an accepted standard with lots of clients available (I prefer Filezilla).
I also use services like box.net to exchange files with clients and customers. These are usually better than the home-grown versions my clients set up, but they still aren't as convenient as email.
I'm hoping that Google Wave or something similar will make the exchange of files with clients easier.
This scenario is all too familiar. I’ve seen e-mail show up months later! Probably 99.9% of the time things work fine. I probably send and receive several thousand e-mails a month, so a simple calculation shows that we’re looking at a few failures per month. That’s about right.
Sometimes I feel silly calling to confirm that a client has received half a page of text, but the alternative of discovering it never arrived when I’m speeding along the autobahn at 100 mph far away from my computer has occurred a few times too often….
I use dropbox and tell them to drop the files via FTP into my dropbox (after giving them the URL and password). I also ask them to send a separate email confirming that they have dropped the files in my drop box. This system seems to work fine for me.
@Gururaj
I’ve used Dropbox with my family, and it really does make sharing files simple. What I like about box.net is that I can easily set up a separate folder for each client, each with its own password.
No one should assume an e-mail has arrived without receiving a confirmation; that was true even before the age of spam. In the early days of e-mail, e-mail addresses were often long and unwieldy and address typos were not uncommon, hence lost e-mail. After the spam problem is eradicated one day (knock on wood), there will be something else causing messages to go lost.
Ryan,
The case you described is really strange. If the email is not confirmed it must not be regarded as received. This is especially true for business emails.
To download/upload large files I prefer FTP to which I connect via Total Commander. The agency provides the user name and password.
For small files, if my email goes to spam at the client’s side, I resend the files from my domain email, but not from gmail account.
//discovering it never arrived when I’m speeding along the autobahn at 100 mph far away from my computer has occurred a few times too often….//
I use the reliable gmail. So if I get intimation while travelling that the client has not received the email sent by me, all I have to do is to stop at the nearest cybercafe, open my gmail and forward the mail with the attached file from my sent folder.
Regards,
Dondu N. Raghavan
@Dondu ….so why is Gmail reliable ?