[Work] Message 'Sent'
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ONLYA
06-06-2019 17:28:38
Black Paper

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Thanks to technology, we are able to send messages to anyone at any time anywhere. However, it could have some issues. For example, the email client says that the message has been sent but the server actually does not deal with the message. This could be very serious when we are sending important urgent messages to someone.
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Mistakes

  1. Over-confident on free email services
  2. Not checking the status of sent emails after sending the emails on both sender's and receiver's views.

Experience

I needed to send a few very important files with a message to someone as a reply as quickly as possible. I replied to the email with attached files immediately. The client alerted "Message sent" and then I just left it.
However, a few days later, I didn't get any response from the person anymore. I thought that it would take more days to deal with the files I sent until some more days later.
I checked the "Sent" folder of the client and sadly found that the email had never sent to the person. The time has been wasted. For that person, I did nothing in these days and the things had been delayed.
Finally, the email has been successfully delivered after three attempts to send it.

Analysis

The experience above can be separated into three parts.

1. Not checking the "Sent" box

From the experience above, I did not check the 'Sent' Box to ensure whether the email had been sent from the view of the client.

2. Leave the response or message without asking for receiving confirmation from receivers

I just left the message until he or she asked me for the message, which had made a waste of time and effectiveness.

3. Using unstable email server

The Email Server is free and not very stable for working all the time. I have got a paid email service, why not use it?

Possible Solutions

1. Check the 'Sent' Box from the client view

Sometimes the message may not be sent even from your client. Checking the 'Sent' Mailbox can assure that the message is transferred from you.

2. If the status of the message can be tracked, ensure it has been sent

Some amazing service can track the status of the sent message, just like package tracking. As soon as the status said that "The email has been delivered to the target server", you can wait for a response.

3. Confirm that the receivers have received the message

In Communication Theory, there is a protocol that the receiver keeps requesting for the comparison of messages on both sides. If they are different, then the sender will send another the same one. This could be used in our circumstances in either sender or receiver side. Send another message in any method to ask the other whether he or she has received the message.

4. Use trusted and paid messaging service to get the guarantee

Paid services are much better than free ones because you can get at least a guarantee of stability and good transformation due to the money you pay to them. On some points of view, time is much more valuable than money, isn't it?


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