topic Re: Return address is causing issues in Sales Email

Return address is causing issues

ZMandel — Wed, 17 Apr 2024 21:45:59 GMT

I'm not sure if this is the right board to post this to. If it isn't, please let me know where I should post.

This is the situation.

1. Client sends a direct email to sales@OURCOMPANYNAME.com

2. We get the email and respond through hubspot.

3. The potential customer gets the response, but the return address is not sales@ourcompanyname.com, but sales=ourcompanyname.com@bf.hubspot-inbox.com

4. When they then respond to that email, the emails never make it to us.

As you can imagine, this is causing havoc. Customers think we're not responsive, we think they aren't. As a result, we're losing sales and some angry customers. This didn't happen until about a month ago. It started off small, but has slowly snowballed.

What is going on and how can we resolve this?

Re: Return address is causing issues

Jnix284 — Wed, 17 Apr 2024 22:53:00 GMT

Hi @ZMandel are you replying from the Inbox? or 1:1 email in contact record?

If the conversations inbox, it sounds like you might not have the fallback email configured and/or the "from" settings for the connected team email channel:

Re: Return address is causing issues

ZMandel — Thu, 18 Apr 2024 02:01:57 GMT

That didn't do it. While fallback wasn't turned on, I turned it on and it's using the default address (when I tried to connect my sales@company.com it said that address was already in use for the sales pipeline, so I left it at default and the forwarding address is the support@123445.hubspot.inbox.com address.

I then ran a test and the same problem appeared. The from email was still sales=ourcompanyname.com@bf.hubspot-inbox.com

Re: Return address is causing issues

Jnix284 — Thu, 18 Apr 2024 02:14:28 GMT

@ZMandel it's definitely something to do with how you have the email connected/configured - as it should be possible to send/receive from the same address.

Do you have a paid subscription? If so, it might be best to submit a ticket to HubSpot support so they can identify which setting(s) isn't configured properly.

Re: Return address is causing issues

ZMandel — Thu, 18 Apr 2024 02:22:11 GMT

I figured as much. I'm not sure what's going on and it was working with no issues about a month or so ago. Then something changed at hubspot an the problems started.

I don't have a paid subscription and, while I'm willing to pay for support, their only option is to pay for a year of service and then I get support.

If they are able to fix this and make things work better I'm willing to pay for a year, but without knowing if this issue is going to get solved I'm hesitant to pay for a year.

Re: Return address is causing issues

Jnix284 — Thu, 18 Apr 2024 11:50:43 GMT

Hi @ZMandel thank you for clarifying your subscription, I can confirm that free users aren't able to configure the reply email the way it was before - this was a recent change with the email sending domain changes required by Google/Yahoo.

With that said, I feel like there were some changes to marketing emails and service/sales emails from the inbox that weren't very clearly communicated.

I can also confirm that a paid subscription is the only way to resolve this, in order to be able to configure the settings the way you want.

You can get Starter access to ALL hubs for $15/mo (paid annually at $180) or $20/mo (paid monthly) - there's no better way to leverage all of the capabilities within HubSpot, the free platform is a great way to test things out, but if you're running a business it's fully worth paying for Starter.

Re: Return address is causing issues

ZMandel — Thu, 18 Apr 2024 20:05:36 GMT

In other words they made changes that broke the "free" version and didn't notify us that a feature we had been using would break, losing us business and force us into a paid tier to solve the problem or find another solution. Lovely.

Re: Return address is causing issues

Jnix284 — Thu, 18 Apr 2024 20:40:39 GMT

@ZMandel I can't say for certain whether it was communicated or not, I receive so many notifications/updates from HubSpot I don't remember how this was changed/communicated at the time.

I'm sorry this has caused frustration for you and has had a negative effect on your business, I don't think the intention is to force anyone into a paid subscription - the intent was to ensure that your email sending domain is actually verified and complying with the changes to requirements by Google/Yahoo, by changing to a HubSpot email address it eliminates the need to connect your email sending domain which has always been a paid feature and allows you to continue using the free tools.