Not receiving multiple customers' messages

[mountainlaurel]

Something strange has happened in the last few weeks. I had a customer for whom I completed an assignment, and he loved the finished product. I sent him a pitch with three more titles, and he hasn't responded -- and it's been a month. He has always been very responsive.

I had two other new customers who have expressed interest in working with me. We had been messaging back and forth about the project, and suddenly I never received any more responses from them. They had also been responsive before that. One of them had previously sent me another message that I never received, and he had to re-send the information. A few days ago, I sent them both a follow-up message, and haven't received any responses.

Several days ago, I sent a note to Constant Content about this issue, and I have never received a response from them, either. Is anyone else experiencing this problem, or am I operating in an alternate universe? I could understand that one customer never got around to responding, but three of them? Can anyone shed any light on this?

Thanks,

Barbara (aka Joanne for this site)

[Word Gypsy]

One of them had previously sent me another message that I never received, and he had to re-send the information.

I've had this happen to me multiple times over the last year or so. I wish I can offer advice, but I haven't been able to remedy this problem.

In some cases, the message is in my CC inbox but has not been forwarded to my personal email. However, since I rarely checked my CC inbox, I never got these messages. Now, I am forced to log in and check my account inbox if I want to ensure that I am not missing anything.

I was told by someone at CC that the error must be with my private email account and that the messages must be going to spam. Not only did I check my spam folder, but I also called my provider to have them look on their end. My provider verified that the emails do not exist on my account in any location, including spam. Since they could see months' worth of emails in minutes, I believe them.

Oddly enough, this problem only seems to happen with newer clients who are either first-time contacts or contacts cultivated within the last year or so. Messages from older clients always make it through except in the case of when they put in a private request and then forget to put in the required amount of credits. When that happens, the private request doesn't go through and I don't know about it until the client contacts me with a "Hey, where's my content" message.

My advice is to send the clients a message that you aren't getting any feedback from them and if they are indeed sending something to contact their CC person. It's not the best solution but it might work. Of course, you still won't know if your message is getting to the client.....

Best of luck,
WG

[mountainlaurel]

Hi Word Gypsy,

Thank you for responding -- that means I'm not crazy. Actually, I had a computer wizard check my email accounts last night, and he couldn't find any problem with the settings. He also verified that the messages weren't in Spam or Trash (which I had already checked). He actually searched through the entire computer, and these messages were not there.

And yes, all the problems were with new clients. I had produced an approved article for one client, and I was still working on project logistics for the other two clients. And actually, there's another new client who had responded very quickly to my messages, and now has suddenly dropped off the face of the earth. I just sent in her article, so hopefully she'll receive it.

Good idea on the client contact note -- that will at least tell them something's wrong and I'm not ignoring them. Hopefully CC will hear about this and do something to remedy the problem. There's a good chance it's costing them money.

Thanks again, and good luck to both of us!

Barbara

[bridger]

I don't know if this is the same problem or not, but I just logged in this morning and found a new response from a customer in my CC inbox... which they had sent almost a month ago. I have actively corresponded with several other customers in that period so it's not like nothing was getting through. And I've been checking directly via the website, so it's nothing to do with my personal email setup.

So, I don't think it's just you, and now I'm wondering about other clients and prospective clients who I just thought had ghosted on me but may, in fact, be thinking that I ghosted on them instead. Not very good for my reputation or business, I imagine. Nor Constant Content's.

[mountainlaurel]

Hi bridger,

Sounds like the problem might be affecting other writers, too. I took Word Gypsy's suggestion and notified my existing clients, along with new clients whose projects hadn't gotten underway yet, that we might have a communications snafu. Not surprisingly, I didn't receive responses from any of them. And yes, I have checked my Spam and Trash folders, and none of these messages are there. In fact, they don't exist anywhere on my computer.

However, I do think the clients received my note. I just completed and sent an article for a recently acquired active client, and CC sent it to her pretty quickly. She approved it within just a few minutes, so it appears that our messages are getting through to clients. We just can't receive any messages from them.

If anyone from CC is monitoring this forum, please take action on this. I've already messaged CC about it, but haven't received any response. If your writers can't receive clients' messages, we can't get article assignments and make money -- and neither can CC. And as bridger says, that might be affecting writers' -- and Constant Content's -- reputations. Let's hope that this gets resolved soon.

[Pellucidean]

It's a pretty big issue if this is happening… I have no idea if it's hit me or not, but there have been quite a number of times when I applied for a casting call and never received a reply back… I just assumed they were never interested, but now I guess it's possible the customers did respond, maybe even favorably. The worst part is that if that ever happened the client must've assumed I just blew them off since they never got a response. Obviously it's very bad for everybody involved with CC if clients are under the impression that writers are ignoring their messages.

[mountainlaurel]

Hi Pellucidean,

I'm not sure about the casting calls. I've always assumed that CC got flooded with applications, and they only responded to writers who were selected (same with other sites). And you're right -- the worst part is possibly having the client assume we ignored them -- which of course isn't the case. Hopefully CC has someone monitoring this forum, and they will see this thread and address this issue.