Loan 86 Vote

Just read this part again - Wouldn't it be better to get an initial version integrated directly into the AC website?
A single page "vote" (perhaps linked from an "Urgent: Lender action required" banner that appears at the top of the website) seems to me like a trivial exercise that might be assigned as homework to a schoolkid to make sure they understood the basic concept of a database - not something that needs to be "planned for H1".

I'd kind-of assumed that the existing email-based system was already automated - feeding the emails into a script that would determine whether it said "Option A" or "Option B", and looking up the sender address and/or cross-referencing the In-Reply-To / References header against the Message-ID of the email originally sent to that specific lender. Automated email processing technology was well-established over 20 years ago. It never occurred to me that someone would actually have been manually reading each of the emails and updating a database by hand!

If you've really been wasting an entire day of staff time on each vote, prioritise getting a member of the IT team to spend a day knocking something simple together (which can be expanded to full intended functionality later during H1 as previously planned). It's an awful lot simpler than several of the other bells and whistles that AC have been adding to the website recently!

As I commented - it never occurred to me that the existing email-based voting system WASN'T being automated with some kind of stop-gap solution using an automated processing script (with a back-end similar to how many website's support pages work - reply to email, and it automatically identifies your reply and adds it to the online support request).

For an initial simple voting page, maybe it could be a task to assign to a new recruit to the IT team, as an introductory exercise as part of their training of how the AC website fits together?


However, davidricketts1: I think the biggest problem with the new voting system was the surprise launch with no warning or explanation.

Having already trained users through other votes to reply to the email with "Option A" or "Option B", I'd bet that an awful lot of people didn't even read as far as the part that told them to click a link - just saw the options, chose one, and voted in the manner they'd been trained to do from previous mails. I almost did that myself, but noticed the new button only just in time.

Can I suggest at the very least that if the same solution is used again, a prominent paragraph at the TOP of the email explains that the voting process has changed, and votes can no longer be made by replying to the email.

Incidentally, for those of us who used both voting links (one in the original email, and one in the follow-up direct from surveymonkey), do they both get counted, or is the system smart enough to de-duplicate the data?

My ISP's spam filters block all AC emails, so I've had to set up a gmail account to receive them.  I have set my gmail account to auto forward those mails to my main account, which works.

I assume survey monkey emails will go to the same account, so I will have to auto forward them as well.  Do survey monkey emails come from a consistent address?  If so, can someone tell me what it is?

Edit 28/1:  the question in my 2nd paragraph arose from a misconception.  I now understand that the emails for polls will not come from surveymonkey, but from AC.  As such my existing set-up should continue to work.

All

Thanks for the input so far. We had to trial this on something and accept it is difficult to make people change.

If I can summarise:

- We need to get the voting email text into the original email from Survey Monkey if possible.  If not then we need to change the wording on the email to reduce likelihood of spam.

- You'd like a record of your vote.  I don't know if this is possible but will ask Marketing when we run the next vote (Friday/next Monday I think).

- Can you change your vote?  No you can't so I'll make sure that this is clearly detailed in the voting text going forward.

Anything else?

Yes, and AC is whitelisted, but the emails don't get that far. They are blocked at an earlier stage that I can do nothing about.  The ISP said that in order to look into it they would need to see any bounceback messages received by AC.  AC said that they have not received any. 

chris:  That's an impressive list of features for the ultimate voting system.  Bring it on!

As for the Survey Monkey stop-gap solution...  well, it has very few of the customer-facing features you mentioned, so it's certainly not even close to fitting the requirements.  In light of that, I'd move the in-house project up the priority list. 

But, of course, I haven't a clue what else is on the priority list, so my opinion isn't going to be given a lot of weight! 

No hassle involved. Click the link in the email from AC to be taken directly to the Survey Monkey poll. Second click chooses option A or B. Third click confirms your vote. Perhaps 10 seconds in all.