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  1. #1
    Join Date
    Apr 2002
    Posts
    1,789

    Sending maintenance announcement notices

    Do you send out notices to your clients about service upgrades or the shutting down of certain software - like older PHP versions - or services?

    My experience tells me that people don't read these. And so I'm wasting my time writing the notice and sending it out, when I'm just going to have to explain to people after the fact. What's the point of sending out the notices if nobody is going to read them?

    People are going to complain regardless of whether you send them prior notice of the event. They want to be informed of the event before hand, but they don't want to bother reading a message about the event.


    Sorry... just had to let off a little steam. It's just frustrating when people don't listen.

  2. #2
    Join Date
    Oct 2011
    Posts
    1,321
    I understand. However it is still better to send a notice to let them know ahead of time.

    If they don't read it, shame on them.
    If you don't send it, shame on you.
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  3. #3
    Join Date
    Apr 2002
    Posts
    1,789
    All it does is create even more wasted time:

    "Did you get the notice?"

    "No, I didn't get it"

    "Well it was sent to this email address you are writing from"

    "I didn't get it"

    "Did you check to see if you got it?"

    "I DIDN'T GET I... oh, there it is. What do I do about it now?"

    It's a waste of my time. If they're not going to read what I send them, why send them anything? People have got to start expanding their attention span. It's like talking to gnats.

  4. #4
    Join Date
    Sep 2008
    Location
    Seattle, WA
    Posts
    1,323
    Quote Originally Posted by SPaReK View Post
    "I DIDN'T GET I... oh, there it is. What do I do about it now?"

    It's a waste of my time. If they're not going to read what I send them, why send them anything? People have got to start expanding their attention span. It's like talking to gnats.
    I don't think there are any customers I would call "gnats", are these just your friends that you are giving free hosting to? Or sounds like you have some customers that want 99.999% service but don't know how to take their own steps to achieve it?

    Most companies/people that are paying money for a service that will be offline due to a maintenance will want a notice ahead of time with a scope of the impact, they then can take the steps needed to notify their customer or setup a redundant/HA setup.
    One step you can take is to use a well known SMTP delivery service (ses, mailchimp, etc) to make sure your emails reach inboxes for maintanance notices. Also as a personal note I prefer the impacting dates/times to be in the subject of the email.
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  5. #5
    We have 3 levels of messages:
    1. Announcement board - minor updates and news, client doesnt need to make any update from his side.
    2. Mass mailing - important updates and news, client may need to make some updates from his side.
    3. Direct email to client - important update, imminent update that will directly affect client's website.

  6. #6
    Join Date
    Aug 2015
    Location
    Nottingham, UK
    Posts
    28
    I've found it's better to send notices simply because of the headache of calls, emails "why is my website down..." and having to explain to every single person one by one.

  7. #7
    Join Date
    Aug 2004
    Location
    Canada
    Posts
    3,785
    Quote Originally Posted by dreamrack View Post
    I've found it's better to send notices simply because of the headache of calls, emails "why is my website down..." and having to explain to every single person one by one.
    You'll find sending a notice for every little thing won't go well either. You will then get users asking why are you doing so much maintenance and complaining about that and thus losing those customers. You'll need to determine what is important based on your client base
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  8. #8
    Join Date
    Nov 2004
    Location
    Tega Cay
    Posts
    823
    I only send notice for issues that will be service impacting or wallet impacting.

  9. #9
    Join Date
    Apr 2011
    Location
    Cybertron
    Posts
    10,484
    It's called avoiding a potential legal issue down the road.

    I get notices from all sorts of services. I read them, delete them and forget about them since whatever is on them will be minor. Data Center notices are the ones I will read and pass along since it effects everything.

    If it's something that will break their site, then as said, shame on them for not reading...but just so you know....in the world of WordPress, no one reads notices. Emailed to them, pasted on the Dashboard, pasted near the footer...no one reads them.

    In our world...you could send a customer a domain expiration notice 90 days....60 days....30 days.....7 days....45 seconds...taped to thier front door....sticky noted on their toothbrush....and they will still let it expire, AND THEN email or call about it and ADMIT to receiving the notices and just decided to wait until the last minute. Try to fix that. It's just humans being humans.....with a much shorter attention span than 20 years ago.

  10. #10
    We only send announcements to individuals/customers on as needed basis when a maintenance release will be affecting their services. We keep announcements and other forms to a minimum to minimize annoyance.

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