Ask HN: How do people send system messages to (human) clients these days?
When building apps/websites I often need to send messages to the business owner / admin.
The messages range from almost logging type messages such as
- "Payment failed for Order 123, please manually process the transaction"
to generic contact forms on a website:
- "FirstName LastName sent a message with the following text: something something something"
My knowledge is rather old and currently I just send email via smtp.
I'm finding email is becoming increasingly unreliable.
Sometimes the smtp server gets marked as a spam server which can take a few days to resolve.
Or the receiver implements a new mail filter, accidentally blocking all the messages.
More and more things are happening that result in emails not sending or arriving.
I've been looking at email api/services such as postmark, mailgun, sendgrid which seem a good idea, but I'm curious how other people handle messaging?
Emails still seems a very convenient messaging style (disregarding issues) and often requested (e.g client will just ask for these messages sent to admin@thing.com).
What are modern messaging practices? Is email still acceptable if you go via an email api? Should I be looking at something completely different?
Thanks guys If it's something urgent I think a text message can be appropriate if it is not sent too many times and is clear, concise and does not expose sensitive information and does not contain links meaning not to train them bad behavior like clicking on links. e.g. From {your business name}, please check your inbox for important communication. For safety purposes no links or details will be sent over text message. Everyone in Malaysia uses WhatsApp for things like this. It's not just a replacement for email, but also calls and letters. SMS is the other option, and it's slightly more reliable than email, which is why govs opt for it. Different countries have different dominant messaging apps though.