Timing of email notifications

Posted almost 8 years ago by Nina Rogers

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Nina Rogers Admin

Hello, Galaxy Digital clients! We have received a handful of requests over the years to change the timing for certain notifications, specifically the reminders and the thank-you messages following a date-specific need or an event. Here's our current schedule:

Reminders go out one week and one day before the need or event is to occur.
Thank-you messages go out one week (7 days) after the need or event occurs, to thank the recipient for volunteering/attending.

We've received a variety of different requests (such as have the "thank you" message go out 24 hours after the event/need occurs, or having the reminder go out three days rather than seven days before), but I'd like to gather more data here.

Please comment to let us know what would be the ideal ranges for both types of messages for you. I can't promise that we can make the change(s) each person requests, but more customer feedback will definitely help us determine how to approach improvements to the timing of these notifications.

Thank you!

Nina Rogers, Lead Technical Writer
Galaxy Digital Customer Care

1 Votes

14 Comments

Eli Poulos posted over 5 years ago Admin

Hi Lisa,

Thanks for reaching out!

I think that is a great suggestion, and I will be sure to add it to our enhancement request list as it's own request, as it is a little different than the custom email timing that has been asked for earlier in this thread.

Have a great weekend!

0 Votes

Lisa Feinman posted over 5 years ago

We have a similar issue concerning the "Need Notification for Agency Fans (Followers)." By design, each time we approve an opportunity and make it live, followers of the agency receive a notification of a new need. We are concerned that our users may stop following our agency when they are inundated with notifications. If we approve 5 or 6 opportunities in a day, we don't want our followers to receive 5 or 6 separate notifications. It would be great to replace these notifications with a digest of new opportunities that would go out at 9:30 am each day and include any opportunities that became active in the last 24 hour?

The "Volunteer Weekly Digest" that is sent to users regarding new opportunities that match their interests and skills is terrific. Something like this would be preferable for notifying followers (fans) about newly posted opportunities (needs).

0 Votes

Ali Pettigrew posted over 5 years ago Admin

Hi Victoria,

I hope you had a nice weekend. I will add your name to this request! Quick suggestion--have you considered turning off the pending hours notification for agencies/programs and only leaving on the digest? This email is delivered once a week to inform agency/program managers of pending hours, and expiring and upcoming opportunities. This might help if your enhancement request doesn't get adopted. If you have questions about how to accomplish that, just send an email on over to support@galaxydigital.com and we'll be happy to help.

Allowing each site to set their own timelines for emails would be a very large change to the software. Currently there are about 50,000 emails sent from our system every day. The system is able to process these quickly because the timing is the same across all client sites. This is why it is such a large lift to change, because for the system to check each site and each email setting for each notification individually would take many more steps for the system. It would have to be largely restructured to accommodate the extra steps without causing serious delays in the sending of emails. I want to be as transparent with you as possible about why that the ability to choose your own timing for each notification will probably not be adopted in the current iteration of the software.

Keep posting your ideas! We value your thoughts so much.

Kind regards,

Ali

0 Votes

Victoria Long posted over 5 years ago

I agree that the most useful feature would be to have the notifications be adjustable to your specific needs - we are just getting ready to launch and I am nervous that people are going to unsubscribe from our emails because there are so many notifications that go out - one that I feel is particularly over-sent is the email for confirming pending volunteer hours - I would be happy for that to go out weekly or even monthly, not daily. If you don't take care of it on Friday you keep getting them through the weekend - and a holiday weekend like we just had - I had 4 identical emails to approve 2 volunteer hours from last week.

0 Votes

Jacqui Henderson-Scott posted over 5 years ago Admin

Hi Brent,

Thank you for sharing your thoughts on timing of automated notifications. I will add your voice to this request!

I did just want to provide you with some updated information. The "Thank You" notification now goes out 24 hours after an event has occurred, so although the internal description does still say 7 days this is no longer the case, and the notification will send 24 hours after the event. I hope that helps!

If you would like to send personalized emails in a time that works for you, then you can use our awesome Email Blast feature. Check out this article from our help center that gives you more information on using Email Blast to speak to your volunteers!

Have a wonderful Friday!

Jacqui

0 Votes

Brent Sturm posted over 5 years ago

Frankly, I think that, in order for the system to be usable, we need to control when those notifications go out. One week and one day ahead is fine for some events, and a disaster for others. Thank yous need to be sent far sooner than a week, but I need to be able to control that.

I get a lot of complaints that people are getting too many e-mails from the system that are utterly meaningless to them. Frankly, I am, too.

1 Votes

Jacqui Henderson-Scott posted over 5 years ago Admin

Hi JP and Jaclyn,

Thank you both for sharing your feedback on custom times for automated reminders. I will add your voice to the current enhancement request. The detail you provided will give our development team some great insight on use case. Have a Happy Monday!

Best,

Jacqui

0 Votes

Jaclyn Miller posted over 5 years ago

I also would want to custom set when reminder emails go out-- our community is used to around 48 hours for their reminders. We have volunteers coming regularly on a weekly basis, and I wonder if getting two emails each week (one reminding them about next week's commitment, and another about this week's) will become cumbersome over time, or even possibly confusing.

24 hours for the thank you seems reasonable, though again with the frequency with which some folks share their time, we may not choose to activate these auto-thanks, and instead send more pointed and catered thank you messages per event or need.

Thank you!

0 Votes

JP Deckert posted over 5 years ago

1) It would be ideal if we could custom set the reminder emails to go out 2 days before the opportunity/need.

2) I wish that the emails went out around 9am CST, rather than 3am CST.

0 Votes

Ali Pettigrew posted almost 6 years ago Admin

Thanks Holly!

Based on the original round of feedback we got, we changed the Thank You Message timing now goes out 24 hours after the opportunity has occurred instead of 7 days.

I'll create a new request with your timing thoughts to start the process over again.

Happy Valentine's Day!

Ali

0 Votes

Holly Salas posted almost 6 years ago

My volunteers complain about getting too many emails and it makes regular communication difficult.

I would say a reminder 1 day before a need happens is fine and event reminder 1 week before. Just my opinion!

1 Votes

Solomon Smilack posted almost 6 years ago

One week ahead is a very bad time period to use, in the case of ongoing needs that happen at the same time every week.

The primary problem is that a volunteer attending the same shift every week will receive an email reminder on a day when they expect to volunteer, but that email is not to remind them of their shift that day - it is to remind them of an identical shift occurring a week later. This gives volunteers a sense that they are simply receiving too many notifications.

One to three days ahead of a volunteer need is best.

0 Votes

Kathleen Johnson posted almost 8 years ago

thanks for asking!

1. Reminders = 1 week and one day is good

2. Thank you message - 24 hours/next day after the need or event occurs

0 Votes

Rachael Murray posted almost 8 years ago

I agree that a week for thank you's is much too long. I would say 24 hours would be best. I am more open about the reminder but I think 3-5 days would be better. Thanks for asking!

0 Votes