Choosing an email service provider that is right for your needs can be hard enough. Unfortunately, it can get even tougher after you make the final decision and sign up. The relationship between customer and provider can turn rocky fast, and when it does it’s usually the customer on the short end of the stick. Here are some of the top gripes users have with their ESPs:

Lack of Support

From web hosting to standalone software, support is important when you invest money in just about any technology these days. This is especially the case when investing in something like email marketing to promote your business. Most companies claim to be on the ball in this department, but not all are living up to those claims. Some of the more unfortunate email marketers have signed up with ESPs only to find out that they never answer the phones, take days to respond to email queries and the live chat function is always down. The lack of support is a major reason for complaints and why some users are one step closer to calling it quits.

Difficult to Use

If it isn’t cheap, then it’s cheap and incredibly easy to use. Ease of use is a selling point that attracts customers to email marketing services because, after all, everyone wants a user-friendly solution. Ironically, one of the biggest complaints customers have has to do with usability. They sign up and learn the hard way that the company’s software is not as accessible as advertised. The software is either too complex or lacks the features and functionality the marketer requires to really make an impact. Either way, the user is stuck with a solution that doesn’t live up to expectations.

Poor Deliverability

From what we’ve seen, the biggest complaint users have with their ESP is poor deliverability rates. They realize that email marketing is something they can’t do on their own, yet find that their messages are not being delivered as promised. This could actually be for two reasons: either the user is not following some of the most important best practices of permission based marketing or the company simply doesn’t have the infrastructure and reputation to support the user’s sending requirements. Neither is good for the marketer because poor deliverability rates usually means you’re not far from being blacklisted.

Know Who You’re Dealing With

Many email marketing services will look like gold on the surface, but you know what they say about everything that glitters. It pays to do your homework before you make that investment. No relationship is ever going to be perfect, but by evaluating the level of support, test-driving a service through a demo or trial offer and conducting thorough research to learn more about a company’s deliverability beforehand, you can avoid having to file the same complaints made by so many others.