OMG, biggest cock up ever

[kev67]

And I mean BIG

I've just decided to add the login facility for regular customers wanting to make orders a bit faster - easy peasy and it works

I've set the 'One Click Completion' in Business Settings so that auto emails send out 'Your order has been sent' bla,bla when I've actually sent the orders out - easy peasy and it works

However, I have orders in my 'Pending' going back to 2007. I wanted to complete them so as they're not in the list anymore, as a result 1650 emails just sent out

I became inundated with words to the effect of "What the hell is this email for, I've received my order months ago"

I've stopped the 'Send Email' part, and clicked on all ancient orders as deleted them

Not sure if this makes sense what I've done, but how on earth can I 'Complete' all these old orders, maintain the auto email but without the auto email sending the email to all the old customers?

Thanks again

[Andy@codepath]

switch off emails, complete old orders, switch emails back on?

[kev67]

Oh dear oh dear

I'm leaving this country and sticking my head in a bucket in Poland or wherever

I completed the outstanding orders from year back AFTER I set auto emails on

Hence hundreds of auto emails got sent out

No need for anyone to call me an utter ******** for this, it was a, well, it was a total rush mistake and I had no idea this would happen

Hands up, and I'm sorry

at myself

Anyone reading this, please learn from me, I am the guru of wrecking it up

[guccij]

Don't beat yourself up too much - most people will have done something similar in the past. I certainly have. I once accidentally set an email list to auto reply and it went round in circles for ages until I killed it. Lots of unhappy customers but thankfully all forgotten now - it was about 8 years ago mind!

[completerookie]

I can go better (but it wsn't me, luckily)

I once received (5-6 years ago) an email and instead of sending the email to a single recipient like you have, he sent it to thousands of people all as long list of names

net result, lots of people got one email, but the amount of people that replied to everyone was amazing,

its like 1000 people gets one email, 100 intelligent people do nothing, but 900 send a reply to "ALL" saying "stop this email you idiot"
and then 90% of those 900 started replying to ALL, saying "just stop it, I don't want this email"

this email went on and on for days

it took a lot of work to calm everyone down

Keep your chin up . . .

[kev67]

Don't beat yourself up too much - most people will have done something similar in the past. I certainly have. I once accidentally set an email list to auto reply and it went round in circles for ages until I killed it. Lots of unhappy customers but thankfully all forgotten now - it was about 8 years ago mind!

Is EXACTLY what I got this morning, customers from years back threatening me with the Police as it goes for spam mailing them

Because I only recently setup "Account" facility, all completed and recent orders are/were sent an auto email as you do which is nice, but.......................I didn't want 2500 plus orders still hanging in my pending list from before I setup the "Account" facility, so I attempted to 'Complete' them all so as they would go in the Completed list

Wrong move to do and hence bucket loads of emails sent out as the only way I can see that you can do this is by clicking the Print Data Entry Report. Fair enough, but over 2000 orders !!!

[kev67]

I can go better (but it wsn't me, luckily)

I once received (5-6 years ago) an email and instead of sending the email to a single recipient like you have, he sent it to thousands of people all as long list of names

net result, lots of people got one email, but the amount of people that replied to everyone was amazing,

its like 1000 people gets one email, 100 intelligent people do nothing, but 900 send a reply to "ALL" saying "stop this email you idiot"
and then 90% of those 900 started replying to ALL, saying "just stop it, I don't want this email"

this email went on and on for days

it took a lot of work to calm everyone down

Keep your chin up . . .

That actually made me smile, and I love the "100 intelligent people do nothing, but 900 send a reply to "ALL" saying "stop this email you idiot"

Classic, utter classic

[Mike Hughes]

Is EXACTLY what I got this morning, customers from years back threatening me with the Police as it goes for spam mailing them

There will always be some people that react at the extremes. Most people will go 'WTF' and delete it and as long as it's a one-off will forget all about it.

You could, and possibly should, send another email apologising and explaining what happened. I think most people would rather get another email saying sorry and explaining what had happened than to hear nothing and be wondering what was going on.

In general with things like this I tend to think that:

1. Over communicating is better than under communicating. On the whole I think people would rather hear about things than be left wondering what was happening because you think 'it really isn't necessary' to say anything more.

2. There will always be some people who respond badly to whatever you do. As long as you believe you're behaving responsibly it's usually best to ignore them as the only other option would be just sit there and do nothing which isn't really going to get you very far.

[saucysal]

Me Too

Some years ago, I accidentally clicked the icon in SD for "Send Email to All Customers", which was next to the icon I wanted but the screen moved, your honour. I realised almost immediately but had trouble stopping it - had to crash SD. I got a few angry emails, about orders going back to 2004, but could have been worse. Ever since I have been extremely cautious and do not go anywhere near the icon.

Sarah

[Andy@codepath]

Some years ago, I accidentally clicked the icon in SD for "Send Email to All Customers", which was next to the icon I wanted but the screen moved, your honour. I realised almost immediately but had trouble stopping it - had to crash SD. I got a few angry emails, about orders going back to 2004, but could have been worse. Ever since I have been extremely cautious and do not go anywhere near the icon.

Sarah

I just don't get why anyone would send an angry email about orders going back that far. It's clearly an admin error and unless I started getting them regularly, I'd just delete and move on.

It irks me that people genuinely trying maximize revenue from existing customers, whilst staying on the right side of spam legislation get abuse like that, yet the genuine scourge of the internet - completely unsolicited and high-volume junk - goes on virtually unchecked and with impunity.

[kev67]

There will always be some people that react at the extremes. Most people will go 'WTF' and delete it and as long as it's a one-off will forget all about it.

You could, and possibly should, send another email apologising and explaining what happened. I think most people would rather get another email saying sorry and explaining what had happened than to hear nothing and be wondering what was going on.

In general with things like this I tend to think that:

1. Over communicating is better than under communicating. On the whole I think people would rather hear about things than be left wondering what was happening because you think 'it really isn't necessary' to say anything more.

2. There will always be some people who respond badly to whatever you do. As long as you believe you're behaving responsibly it's usually best to ignore them as the only other option would be just sit there and do nothing which isn't really going to get you very far.

That's what I done Mike, I sent an email back to all who "Had a go at me" to explain what happened. Only a couple came back to me to thank me for the explanation but as you say, over communicating is better which is what I done. Hopefully that's the end of it ??

[kev67]

Some years ago, I accidentally clicked the icon in SD for "Send Email to All Customers", which was next to the icon I wanted but the screen moved, your honour. I realised almost immediately but had trouble stopping it - had to crash SD. I got a few angry emails, about orders going back to 2004, but could have been worse. Ever since I have been extremely cautious and do not go anywhere near the icon.

Sarah

I think what happened for me is pretty much the same thing as you, so I have unchecked the email facility apart from recent orders, But I've had to delete all orders prior to the time I activated the account login facility otherwise thousands of emails will go out again

What a nightmare

[kev67]

I just don't get why anyone would send an angry email about orders going back that far. It's clearly an admin error and unless I started getting them regularly, I'd just delete and move on.

It irks me that people genuinely trying maximize revenue from existing customers, whilst staying on the right side of spam legislation get abuse like that, yet the genuine scourge of the internet - completely unsolicited and high-volume junk - goes on virtually unchecked and with impunity.

Andy, it is true, I had a "Should I call the Police"
I had "Is this spam"
I had "I don't live there so why have I received this, are you spamming me?"

As you say, these emails were to those who bought from me, it was a mistake that I couldn't stop, much like everyone else who has replied to this thread

As for your last comment, I couldn't agree more as I get hundreds of the usual junk