Deprecation of Support for Internet Explorer (December 2022)

We are deprecating support from JS SDK by the end of the year. Internet Explorer usage has been on a decline for quite some time, and our research shows the traffic coming in from IE is insignificant. Removing support IE11 from JS SDK will greatly improve our maintenance efforts and will ensure we can keep supporting all major browsers with much higher traffic.

Holiday Readiness 🎄 (October, 2022)

As the peak shopping season of the year quickly approaches, we understand how important it is for you to be able to continue operating without disruptions. To make sure you receive the best service possible from us during this time, we have made preparations across all departments.
Please read through the information below to understand the ways our teams are able to support you, and the resources available to you during this busy period.

Engineering

Our engineers have been collaborating with the Client Services team to collect your platform capacity requirements. The things we look at include:

• Regular email, SMS, and push volumes (newsletter, automated)
• Estimated impact on overall tracking (web/app visits, orders, etc.)
• Planned increase to those volumes
• Timeframes of the increased activity

Based on this data, our Engineering team will be upscaling platform capacity on instances accordingly. If you have not shared this data with us, we will still monitor and upscale, only with less direct input from your team.

In addition, we have a monitoring system in place where an increased pressure on our systems notifies our Engineering team to upscale our systems further to ensure that if more capacity than planned is needed, our engineers will be proactively adjusting performance to prevent issues. The only focus of our Engineering team during Black Friday week is maintaining and monitoring platform performance. Our backups and continuity management are further reinforced by processes in line with our ISO certifications. These processes are tested ahead of time in October to ensure they will perform as expected. If occasional slowdowns occur in the platform, they will be resolved in accordance with our standard SLAs.

Support

Our Support team will always be your key partner in managing any technical challenges you might experience, as they have a direct line of communication with the Engineering team. This peak period, our teams are taking extra steps to make sure you are getting the help you need.

A notification system for downtime is in place to notify key people in your organization by email as quickly as possible. If you don’t have this set up and would like to receive these notifications, please contact your CSM for further details. Additionally, we will internally notify your CSM with notifications which impact your account.

You’ll get full Support team capacity during this period, with every team member working full hours (no annual leave allowed between November 14th and December 2nd).

Testing, cross-departmental processes, and communication channels are also in place, with the right people ready if needed. Response times and service will continue to be in accordance with our SLAs during peak season.

Deliverability

As email is a key channel for our customers, our deliverability experts are preparing an information deck which you will receive shortly.

There are two weekends in this peak (November 19th-20th and 26th-27th) when our deliverability specialists will be available to you for consultations during working hours. In case of urgent questions, please feel free to reach out to them directly via [email protected] for EMEA and [email protected] for Americas.

At the same time, our partner ESPs (Mailgun and more) have taken steps to upscale their systems and are increasing their on-duty team capacity.

You can find tips and recommendations from our Senior Deliverability Consultant here.
If you are interested in being up to date on the latest technical status of Mailgun and Sendinblue, you can subscribe to their notifications:

• Mailgun: https://status.mailgun.com/
• Sendinblue: https://status.sendinblue.com/

Client Services

The Client Services team is preparing to match all clients with not only their CSM, but also Business and Technical Consultants who will be ready to help you prepare for peak times to maximize chances of success in advance. If you need help from the Technical or Business Consultants, please let your CSM know by the end of October. All consultants will be focused mostly on helping you prepare for peak season, but can also assist you during working hours during this period.

Escalation Path and Key Contacts

For any preparation, strategic advice, or larger questions about specific campaigns, please contact your CSM directly. They will be able to advise you or pull in the right consultant to do so. Please remember the Client Services team is available during working hours only.

For any in-app questions, concerns, or technical issues, you should contact the Support team directly through your Engagement application.

If a critical issue is not resolved by speaking with your CSM, please escalate the issue by contacting support, your CSM, and the Regional Head of Client Services.

These are:

• CIS: Anastasia Kutasova: [email protected]
• UK: Sam Francis: [email protected]
• USA: Marcin Stelmach: [email protected]
• CEE: Martin Visvader: [email protected]
• DACH & WE: Florian Felber: [email protected]

What You Can Do to Help

• There are a few things that you can do to ensure your application works as quickly as possible, including:
• Plan any bulk imports of customer data, product catalogs, etc. ahead of time (e.g., importing on Thursday before Black Friday)
• Plan bulk imports for quiet periods, when campaigns are not scheduled and clients are not engaging (e.g., between 10 p.m. - 4 p.m.)
• Use the import function (e.g., CSV) instead of APIs for bulk imports
• Check your frequency policy to make sure your emails are not getting blocked
• Set your sends 5-10 minutes around the hour (instead of sending at 9 a.m., send at
  8:55 or 9:10)
• Do not change your tracking or code close to peak (we would suggest a two-week code freeze prior to Black Friday)
• Push audiences for social media to the respective platforms the day or night before