Syncro sends emails on your behalf and receives emails from your end users into the system. You'll want to set up your Syncro account to ensure communications are reliably delivered/received and reflect the branding of your organization.

Options for Sending/Receiving Emails

To send and receive emails with Syncro, there are three possible options (each with pros and cons): 

1. Use the default, Syncro-provided email/Mailbox (e.g., yourdomain@syncroemail.com). This System Default Mailbox is created when your Syncro account is made. However, this option uses Syncro's branding and a shared email backbone, so deliverability may vary. It's a decent choice for initial demos of the functionality, but ideally you move on to option 2 or 3. If you decide to stay with option 1 and use the Syncro-provided email, it is strongly recommended that you Configure Verified Email Domains to improve your email deliverability.
   
   IMPORTANT: If you change your subdomain, the Syncro-provided email address will change to reflect it. You must let your end users know about any such change, as the old email address will no longer work.  
    
2. Configure a custom-branded email/Mailbox (e.g., help@yourcompany.com). This option requires some light configuration but allows you to use your own custom domain and have more branding options. You will still want to be sure to Configure a Verified Email Domain to ensure better deliverability. You can set up multiple outbound emails to send billing and marketing emails from their own dedicated email addresses while preserving one for support.   
   
   See Configure a Custom-branded Email/Mailbox and Configure Verified Email Domains for detailed instructions.
    
3. Bring your own SMTP. This option gives you ultimate control over deliverability and branding. Plus, you can set up multiple outbound emails to send billing and marketing emails from their own dedicated email addresses while preserving one for support. 
   
   See Set Up SMTP for detailed instructions.

Understanding Email Deliverability

We at Syncro care about email delivery and do everything possible to maintain our platform in both the technology and our reputation.

In the email universe there are three main parties:

1. The ESP (Email Service Provider). 
   Note: If you're using the default, Syncro-provided email/Mailbox (option 1) or the custom-branded email/Mailbox (option 2) described in Options for Sending/Receiving Emails, your ESP is Syncro and our ESP is SendGrid. If you're using SMTP (option 3), the ESP is your email server provider which you may also be hosting.
2. You, the Sender of the email.
3. The Recipient of the email (an end user via their chosen email provider).

An ESP has two main areas of responsibility:

1. Send emails in a technically correct and responsible manner.
2. Create and enforce a minimum standard of delivery.

As a sender, you have these areas of responsibility:

1. Ensure the email addresses you collect and mail actually belong to your end users.
2. Respect your end users by sending them mail they want or expect.

Some things, such as the following, are out of everyone’s control:

• Filters (particularly at the consumer ISPs) are based on machine learning and are very automated. They judge mail based on statistics and probability. 
• Email providers run spam filters with black box technology with lots of machine learning built in. You can think of SEO as an analogy. They’ll look at sender IP, sending domain, sending email address, subjects, body, and more. They’ll also try to categorize the email and then make a guess at if they think the recipient wants to interact with this piece of mail based on their prior behaviors.
• Consumers lose access to their email addresses over time. Mailing to these addresses can contribute to a poor reputation and bad deliverability.

Troubleshooting

If your emails are going to your end users' spam folders instead of their inbox, here are some things you can do to improve email deliverability:

• Verify you have the correct email addresses for end users. 
  • Ideally, you would send them an email while you're in other contact with them so they can confirm they've have received it. 
  • In Syncro, this can be done by making sure they confirm receipt of the ticket creation email/autoresponder at the first interaction.
• Since most of your email out of Syncro is Transactional, make sure new end users interact with your emails.
  • An example: You send an invoice to someone who never opens emailed invoices. There's a good chance the filter will decide this person doesn’t want the email, no matter how good the email or sender reputation is.
• If you are doing their IT and controlling your end user's email platform, allowlist your domain on their relevant spam filter if one is implemented.
• Ask your end users to find all your email in their spam folder and “mark as not spam.”
  • An example: you have a ticket opened and the contact clicks the spam button accidentally as they clean up their inbox. This may have moved all your email to this end user to the spam folder. (This can put all your email to all your end users in the spam folder for all we know!)
• Ask your end users to add you to their address book.
• Configure Verified Email Domains or update your SPF record for your email server to allow Syncro to send emails on your behalf.

When the emails you send directly go to your end users' inbox but this doesn't happen when you send email from Syncro, there are many potential reasons. These include:

• You're still using the default, Syncro-provided email/Mailbox instead of a custom-branded email/Mailbox or SNMP.
• The person recently got a number of emails from you and didn’t interact with them.
• Someone recently clicked the spam button on similar email from you.
• The person recently clicked the spam button on similar email from someone else.
• Potential reputation issues around the sending email, headers, etc.

Email Addresses Syncro Blocks Based on Roles

When it comes to Syncro's Mailer module—where you are emailing a potentially large group of customers—we take certain steps to avoid being classified by ISPs and email providers as a spammer.

One of those steps is to block emails to "role-based" emails, such as info@company.com. See Role Addresses and Their Effect on Email Deliverability for more information. 

Below is a list of all the titles Syncro will not send emails to so that a good reputation with ISPs and email providers is maintained: