Bounced emails - Now what? Suggestions appreciated...

[Reesy]

Just a general question to see what you do here?

In Japan, the big 3 mobile phone operators block ALL incoming email to their servers UNLESS the customer registers the domain first... which is probably about 1% of customers that do this first?

So picture the scene.
Little old guy buys a phone, can barely use it to make calls, let alone delve deep into the settings to register a domain so he can receive email from said domain.
He makes a purchase choosing bank transfer which REQUIRES him to recieve the email which has the bank details in (the same details are on the site aswell of course).

On a daily basis the process goes like this...
1) Receive a call, your site is brokem, I received no order confirmation.
Let me check and get back to you...
Check customers registered email address, yes its a mobile email address.

2) Call customer back and explain that he needs to register our domain in his phone settings in order to receive email from the shop
Explain this is not just for our store but for EVERY SITE on planet earth, if he wants to receive email, he must register.

Of course the customer
a) Doesnt believe you anyway, it must be your fault
b) Thinks you are asking him to design the next NASA space rocket, and its sounds too difficult.
c) Says yes to everything you recommend and then does nothing anyway
d) Loses trust in you as a vendor as he thinks your asking him to jump through hoops

From experience the best approach is to ignore a-d above, as explaining confuses the confused and its best to explain... see this page? theres the bank details, please make the payment to there.. which means the shop gets paid, and of course there are no confirmation emails received etc etc.
With no emails received, every time one product is out of stock you have to pick up the phone, which kind of defeats the point of email.

Is there a message plugin or hack to basically put a big banner across the top of the screen saying
Your emails are bouncing until you register our domain in your phone?

What else is there other than trying to call people all the time?
Any ideas?

[mc12345678]

Is there a way to determine upon account creation to identify if the recipient is using such a "troubled" email?

There are generally multiple points at which an account can be created, the basic being login at any time while navigating the site and at checkout. Complicating this a little is if some form of guest checkout is applied.

Thought is/could be that as I recall there is/was a plugin that supported a sort "I've received an email with a link to confirm that I have received the email" which could be used to deactivate a routine message for a logged in customer.

As far as displaying a message, one could have a file that detects that a customer is logged in, and when so have it display the desired information. Going the step further with above, if the customer is logged in and has not confirmed receipt of the email, then display the message.

As far as stock tracing with the outside payment process, seems unfortunate as if no communication was received by the purchaser, there is no manual "link" way to deduct the stock (identify specific purchase) and the customer (without the registered domain) runs the risk of requesting a product that has a quantity of one let's say at the same time or just before another customer with the domain registered has made the purchase through the store and then it is up to the store to determine which customer receives the item... (second customer more than likely paid before the first, although the first requested the item well first...) The standard ZC process identifies the first customer to complete checkout as the winner...

[Reesy]

Thanks for the reply.

Forcing the customer to verify their email address is built into zc unless I'm wrong. However forcing that step just moves the point at which the customer bails out to much earlier. They won't receive any email so can't confirm their email, thus can't shop at all.

I have found a message system on osc that I might look at porting across but that just seems to put a new message section under my account, if the customer never goes to my account it will never be seen.

Is there a way to determine upon account creation to identify if the recipient is using such a "troubled" email?
Yes, they will all have @docomo.ne.jp @au.com or @softbank.com
There's only around 140 million accounts between those 3 domains..
Hmmm more thinking required....

[Reesy]

Btw checkout without account, has the same end result... Checked out, emails automatically sent, and bounced and not received. Either way the orders are captured, but it's only part of the story.

[swguy]

This might have been a typo, but just for clarity:

Forcing the customer to verify their email address is **NOT** built into zc.

[Reesy]

It was a typo, it's part of checkout without an account plugin however forcing email verification as I say achieves nothing.

[mc12345678]

The reason/intent behind the "verification" was to support *not* displaying the eternal message of "you must add our domain to your phone's "email" account"... otherwise, that message described in the OP would just always need to be annoyingly displayed.

Another "adaptation" may be to store the email that was sent and make it available from the order history/account area? There already is the capability to archive emails and there is a tool for the admin side to be able to review it. The modification would be to focus the available emails for the customer to be just for that customer...

I don't think that solves the "bank approval" email portion though...

[mc12345678]

Are the bank details on the checkout_success page or back on the checkout_payment area and some other easy location in the site?

Is there an alternate payment acceptance process that could be used that is more integral to the sequence of events and to get the necessary payments?

Fyi, I thought there was another zenner here abouts that works heavily in the japanese commerce area. Perhaps that individual (sorry forgot name, but thought the individual was working on the japanese language pack) has some additional ideas?

[Reesy]

Agreed, my idea was not to say "add our address or else" more to let them know... "Your email settings are wrong and no emails from this site will be received until you change it" or similar in more polite verbose ;)

The issue is somehow informing the customer the issue is their side not ours in the bigger picture.

[Reesy]

Are the bank details on the checkout_success page or back on the checkout_payment area and some other easy location in the site?

Yes, both. As I mentioned on the phone you can say please go to xyz page here you will see our bank details, please pay X as per the total of order z. You try having the same conversation dozens of times a day... It soon gets tedious at best answering the same, your site is broken, why didn't I get any email accusations.

Is there an alternate payment acceptance process that could be used that is more integral to the sequence of events and to get the necessary payments?

Not in relation to zc, not that I can think of.

Fyi, I thought there was another zenner here abouts that works heavily in the japanese commerce area. Perhaps that individual (sorry forgot name, but thought the individual was working on the japanese language pack) has some additional ideas?
Kuroi probably.
The issue is not limited to Japan. Imagine Gmail made people jump through hoops to receive email from your site and unless the customer jumped though the hoops no emails to any Gmail account is received. It's the same issue.