Why are your business emails landing in customers’ junk folders?

Your business emails can land in junk folders when your customer’s email provider questions who sent them. It may spot something suspicious or apply that customer’s filtering rules. Your message may be legitimate and still get caught up. Finding the cause means checking the message and how it was sent.

You send a big quote and wait for a reply. A few days later, the customer says, “we never received it.” Eventually, they find it in their junk folder.

If you own a business in Lawton or Duncan, this is more than just a pain in the rear. You have to make another phone call, deal with another delay and wonder whether your customer received your information.

Why does your real email get treated like junk?

Your customer’s email provider tries to keep scams and unwanted messages out of their inbox. It checks a few things before deciding where your message belongs.

Scammers can put your business name and logo on a fake email. Because of that, your customer’s email provider checks for other signs that your message really came from you. It also checks your links, attachments and the reputation of the system sending your email before deciding whether your message belongs in the inbox or junk folder.

How does your email prove it came from you?

Your business email has background settings that help your customers’ email providers check whether a message really came from you or your business.

You may have heard me call them SPF, DKIM and DMARC. Together, they help check whether the system sending your email is authorized to send for your business, whether your message carries a verifiable digital signature and whether those checks match the business address your customer sees.

Setting up SPF, DKIM and DMARC correctly also helps protect your business from scammers sending those fake emails that appear to come from your email address. These checks help your customers’ email providers identify and block messages that use your domain without permission.

Ask your IT provider to check these settings.

What about your invoices and website messages?

Your normal mailbox might not be the only place sending email for your business. Your invoicing software, website and primary business app may send emails also.

These tools may need to be added to your SPF record, which lists the systems allowed to send email for your business. Ask your IT provider to check what each tool requires, because SPF is only part of the setup.

Let your IT provider know which systems you use. That gives them a better starting point than checking your mailbox alone.

What should you do when your email goes missing?

The first check is the simplest: confirm that you used the correct email address. You would be surprised and how often this is the reason an email fails. 

Ask your customer to check their junk folder. Tell them when you sent the message and what the subject line said so they know what to look for. If they find it, ask them to mark it as “not junk.” That may help your future messages reach that customer, but it does not explain what caused the problem.

Give your IT provider one of your affected messages to investigate. They may need the original message, including the delivery information normally hidden from view.

Should you keep resending the message?

If your message is urgent, call your customer and agree on how to get the information to them. Do not assume another copy reached their inbox.

If this keeps happening, ask your IT provider to investigate the pattern.

At Wolferdawg IT Consulting, I help businesses in Lawton, Duncan and across Southwest Oklahoma troubleshoot business email problems. Reach out if customers regularly miss your important messages.