Next Best Send Feature

[LisaB385]

Please, please, please make this go away!! It is very confusing and slows down my mailing process process every morning. We are used to having the send now feature as a default which is PERFECT for us as almost every email blast sent out needs to go out immediately. To have the next best send as the default is causing confusion and almost cost us a few of our messages from going out when they should have which would have been disastrous for us. While we appreciate the feature option, it would be much more beneficial if it were NOT the default or if we had an option to select which one we would like to have as our default. Thank you so much for your time and consideration. We hope that this change can be made promptly.

[Hannah_M]

Hi @LisaB385,

Thanks for your feedback on this new feature, I am sorry for any confusion it has caused. Please continue to share feedback as you have it so we can work to impement changes and new features in the future!

[PVPA-Lisa]

I am switching to **Competitor Removed by Moderator**! You added a default setting that automatically sends out emails a week from the time I set it up. This has never been the default before. The default has always been "Send Now" for the three years that I have been using Constant Contact. This means that the last weekly e-mail I sent out to 900+ families who count on this information each week are just receiving it today, a week late. And when I called to first of all, find out what the heck happened, and then when I was told it was my fault, asked that the default be changed back to "Send Now" on my account, I was told that it can't be changed. This is completely unacceptable. There is no way that I want the default to be sending every e-mail a week from the day I set I up. And what are the chances that I am going to ALWAYS remember to change the default to "Send Now." You can bet that when I'm in a hurry every Friday afternoon trying to throw together this newsletter (which is necessary because of the timely items that are added at the last minute)? There are certainly going to be times when changing this default will be missed. I can't afford to have this kind of mistake happen ever again, and since you can't change the default setting (you're all bright computer programmers so I don't know why this is a problem), I am going to be switching to **Competitor Removed by Moderator** or some other mail service. And sadly, I will also be sharing this experience with other users, lest other people's e-mails also get botched in this fashion. Suggestion: how about you don't have any default, and you let the person choose from your three options, and then don't let them proceed to the next screen until they pick one of the three? This would be much more favorable than you pre-selecting a date a week later. Now I have to go and apologize to my angry client base who are mostly parents. This should be fun. Thanks Constant Contact.

[Samantha_O]

Hello @PVPA-Lisa, 

Thank you for your feedback on this new feature and I am sorry about the effect that this had on your last mailing.  Your post has been moved to our Feedback area, so that we can keep all of the comments about this new feature together.  This also allows other users to vote on this as well.  The more votes and comments that a post gets, the greater visibility it has with our product teams. 

[CreativeLabels]

That option should not be prefilled out at all and should force the user to select.

Seems simple enough to just click a button, but I must be missing something.

Can someone define what the criteria is for Next Best?

[kinetica]

I'm pretty sure your Next Best Time to publish option is backfiring.  Every one of the emails I've set to go since you've added this tells me the following: Next Best Time - Saturday, June 6, 2015 at 4:01PM EDT I have over 200,000 contacts in 272 lists that I've sent 12, 247 messages to in the last 10+ years and you're telling me the next best time for ALL of them is Saturday, June 6, 2015 at 4:01PM EDT?

And if you click on the highlighted: "Why is this the next best time?" The answer is "We recommend this time based on when your contacts have previously opened emails from you. If we don't have that information, we look at industry trends for your type of business."

I can guarantee you all of my contacts have not opened on a Saturday at 4pm.   And as far as "industry trends for your type of business" goes - I advertise for MANY,MANY different businesses...Restaurants, multiple retail shops each carrying different products, a bowling organization, a restaurant equipment supply company and the list goes on.  Your telling me all of them open on a Saturday at 4pm?

I think not.  Thanks but no thanks.  Another useless feature.

[Samantha_O]

Hello @kinetica, 

Thank you for your feedback on our "Next Best Time to Send" feature.  I completely understand how this feature might not be for you.

This feature was built in mind for our typical customer, meaning a small business that send a few emails a month (typically 1-4/month).  They are also going to be within one industry and most likely sending to the same list(s) most of the time or sending smaller targeted emails to specific customers.  Since the Next Best Time to Send feature is set to just show the time your one next email should be sent out, scheduling multiple emails at once or in advanced would need to be scheduled using Send Later. 

This is not designed for people like you, who are using one account to send for multiple organizations and this is one of the reasons why we recommend having one account per organization.  If you are interested in learning more about the advantages of having multiple accounts, we are happy to discuss.  

[DavidP711]

Agree fully. The random addition of this feature and making it the default created problems. Please return the default to "send now" 

[IrishArts]

useful in how we currently use the system. The suggestions made by the feature do not currently correspond with our own marketing strategies and appear to be way off base from what would be desireable. Including the feature as the first and default option has also caused us difficulties on several occasions, as we are accustomed to, and prefer having the "send now" as a default, (given how we operate), and manually selecting other options if the need should arise.

[ObicaN]

Well, I am a typical customer, and my Next Best Time says Monday at 6:04am... I find it hard to believe that.

[AlisonW]

I was not even aware you added the feature to send an email at the 'next best time'. I didn't really look and assume the default was 'send now' so proceeded to schedule my email. When it still hadn't been received by people the next day, I went in to check and found that it was scheduled for Mon. June 15 - and this was on Tuesday, June 9 and I wanted it sent right away. I was horrified that the program decided the best time would be the following Monday. Default for sending the email should remain at the previous 'send now' setting.

[AlisonW]

I also posted about the 'next best time' feature which is a horrible idea. Now I see all the other comments about it and wonder why it has not already been removed or at least, taken off as the default setting. How many complaints does the company need to get before it changes back to the default of 'send now' or, as someone else suggested, no default at all, force the user to make a selection.

[SusanB60]

Instead of "send now" it's set at "send at next best time". I didn't notice this the first time and it delayed our weekly newsletter (will time sensitive announcements) for a full week. It's just one more step I have to remember when scheduling. Please change this back to default "send now"

[JenniferK21]

I want to add my voice to the criticisms of the next best time. Though it says that it is beased on our contacts opening the email, this is frankly not possible. It always suggests Saturday mid-afternoon which is problematic becuase 1) as a Jewish organization our customers are not oepning up emails on Saturday afternoon and 2) because our organization has a policy of not sending out emails on sabbath. Minimally I'd suggest adding a feature for users to customize when possible times are for sending of email so that we could block off the Sabbath as possibilities. 

But also, you should look into how the feature works, becuase I think that it's not even fulfilling it's described purpose of predicting based on past open rates. 

[Hannah_M]

Next best time to send is no longer the default when scheduling your emails.