I was talking to someone about a change to their site, and commented I had not received any notification of the changes; to which they replied that they had sent out emails.  A quick check showed that I really had not received the email, and had not been receiving their updates for several months!
So what had gone wrong?  The answer was that they had sent an email out about 4 months previously saying that they were moving their mailing list to a new mailing list manager, and that people needed to re-signup as the software required authorisation from the destination email address.
(Good practice as it reduces the risk of people maliciously signing up other people).  
However I had either not read the email or read and forgotten to act on it, so I was not on the current mailing list.

So how could this situation be avoided?
customer:

1. Read all admin emails carefully, especially if they are marked as important
2. Act on changes to contact details, mail methods, etc.
3. Check periodically that you are receiving the emails you expect to – if a company normally mails yo monthly and you don’t hear for a couple of months, check and see if there is a problem.

admin/company:

1. Keep important updates such as change of address/contact method/etc separate from normal communications
2. Mark them as important/urgent so that customers know it is required reading
3. Consider splitting communications into 2 channels – routine and important
4. If moving email delivery methods, send follow up emails via old method once change is implemented to catch anyone who missed first communication.

Remember, as I said in my earlier posts – it is about creating and maintaining a 2-way line of communication, it benefits neither side if the lines of communication get broken.

I recently sent an email to my customers advising them of am upgrade to their account, only to find 10% of the emails were returned as undelivered. This means not only will they not be aware of the extra facilities on their account, but they face the prospect of having their account suspended when their renewal fee comes due. This is not something I want to to do, but sadly I am running a business not a charity.

On StartXchange we are constantly having to deal with non-delivered and automated response emails which takes time away from helping members.

So how can companies and customers work together to keep lines of communication open and both sides happy?
Customers:

• Keep your email address up to date, make a list me who has what email address.
• Allow plenty of time to change address over if you do change addresses.
• Keep your mail and spam filters up to date.
• Check spam / held mail folders regularly.
• Make sure your inbox is not full.

Companies:

• Make sure new members know what address to expect mail from.
• Remember, access to your customers email address is a privilege not a right, treat it with respect.

Contrary to popular perception, you DO want to remain in contact with these companies, but still retain control over your email.

So what can you do to protect yourself? The simplest answer to many people, especially given the vast number of free email service providers, is to use a ‘disposable’ email address to confirm the sign up, and never return to afterwards. This solves the problem of people getting hold of your ‘personal’ email address and filling it with unwanted emails.

The problem is that this is actually potentially storing up a time-bomb for future misery, and possibly even financial loss.
Why? Because this is the only “authorised” point of contact the company has with you!

• If you forget your password, where will the company send the reminder?
• If you need to discuss your account, where will the company send the information?

Correct – to that ‘disposable’ email address!
Plus, many companies now require members to maintain a “working” email address. By “working” they mean one that:

• does not have an auto-responder when they send you information
• does not send back a “can not deliver email” message because the mailbox is too full, or does not exist at all
• does not send back a “I have an anti-spam system that requires you to confirm your identity” message.

Put simply – when they send you an email, they do not want to get any automated response from your email account!

So, we return to the question – What can you do to protect your email account from being spammed, and yet still maintain ‘contact’ with the company?
There are 3 possible solutions, which for maximum effectiveness can be combined.

1. Use a ‘public’ email address which you then forward to a private email address to actually read and reply to – for maximum efficienciency set the “from” address to match the public email address if you download the email, or reply from the public email address if using web-mail. If necessary, you can delete unwanted emails periodically to keep the account clean.
   This means that if a company abuses your email address, it can be blocked at the public address keeping your private address secure.
2. Use advanced mail filtering rules to filter incoming mail by both to and from address – so if the ‘correct’ sender does not send mail to the ‘correct’ address it gets blocked. The only real drawback is that initially when signing up to a new company their email will be blocked until you can add their details to your mail filters, and if you are dealing with a large number of companies it can slow down mail delivery as each company will have to have its own filter rule, and it can take longer for all the additional rules to be checked before the mail is passed.
3. Use a spam filtering service to process your incoming emails, and forward the ‘cleaned’ emails to you. Remember, that many companies will penalise you if they receive ’spam check’ responses; so either disable challenge responses when signing up, or if you know the email address / domain that the email will come from add this first to the spam service.
4. Do NOT add the sender to your email provider spam list, unless you are sure what this really means – see Tim Lindens post for why this is a BAD idea.

As I said earlier, combining these methods can vastly reduce the unwanted email you have to check.