Emailing Customers

Overview

The platform emails invoices, credit notes, correspondence and CDR files to the addresses held on a customer and their contacts. Billing administrators and support agents use this guide to send single emails, send in bulk, and check whether an email arrived.

This guide shows you how to:

Send an invoice or letter to one customer
Choose recipients, invoice format and attachments
Send to many customers at once
Track an email and act on a failure

For verifying addresses, suspended addresses and unsubscribes, see Managing Email Addresses. For the full reference, see Emailing Customers.

Quick start

Most common tasks

Resend an invoice with the usual settings -> Invoice page > Email button Send an invoice to a different address -> Invoice page > Actions menu > Email Invoice Send a letter -> Correspondence page > Actions menu > Email Correspondence Send invoices after a billing run -> Email Bills Check whether an email arrived -> Customer page > sent emails in the right-hand summary

What customers receive

How much detail an email contains depends on consent. Until the customer gives consent, invoices are sent in a de-personalised version, without details such as call itemisation. Consent comes either from the GDPR & PECR Consent Given flag on the customer, or from an individual recipient verifying their address. See Email Data Protection.

Emails go out through your own email provider if one is set up, or through the platform email server. The platform server sends account-related emails only. Marketing emails must go through your own provider.

Sending a single email

Send with the default settings

On an invoice, credit note or correspondence page, click Email. The platform sends straight away to the customer’s normal recipients, with their usual invoice format and message. There is no form and no confirmation.

Send with your own settings

What you need:

The invoice, credit note or correspondence to send
Expert Mode at Low level or above, if you are sending to an address not already held for the customer

Steps:

Open the invoice, credit note or correspondence.
Go to Actions menu > Email Invoice, or Actions menu > Email Correspondence.
Choose recipients from any of these lists. Leave them all blank to use the normal recipients.
- Customer Email Addresses: addresses on the customer record
- Contact Email Addresses: addresses of contacts linked to the customer
- Internal Team Emails: you, the account manager or commission holders
- Previous Recipients: addresses used for earlier emails to this customer
- Other Email Addresses: any other addresses, one per line or separated by commas or semicolons
For an invoice, choose the Email Message, Invoice Format and Usage Report Profile if they should differ from the customer’s defaults.
Add any Extra Attachments.
Choose an Email Reason and add Email Details to record why you sent it.
Click Email Invoice or Email Correspondence.

If a selected recipient is invalid, the platform stops and highlights it. Correct the selection and send again. See Recipient checks.

To send an invoice’s CDR file rather than the invoice, use Actions menu > Email Invoice CDRs on the invoice. It offers the same recipient lists.

Invoice formats

Format	Contains	Typical use
Short	Totals, invoice number and payment instructions	Reminders, or customers who only need the amount due
Long	Adds charges by category and VAT	Standard monthly invoices
Full	Adds itemised calls and usage graphs	Queries about specific calls

Each customer has a default format for email attachments, downloads and printed bills. See Bill Lengths.

Sending in bulk

There is a separate tool for each kind of bulk send:

Invoices after a billing run: use Send Bills. See Email Bills.
Letters to many customers, such as payment reminders or price change notices: use Bulk Mailing. See Bulk Correspondence.

Before a bulk send, check the problem email addresses list. Emails to suspended addresses are not sent, so fix those addresses first.

Tracking an email

Every email creates a sent email record. You can find it:

In the right-hand summary on the customer’s page
On the page of the email address it went to
On the page of the invoice or correspondence it carried

Open the sent email to see where and when it went, its status, a preview of the content, and the Delivery Details from the receiving server.

Status	Meaning
Shown in grey, no status yet	Queued or being sent
Delivered	The customer’s email service accepted it. This does not confirm it reached the inbox.
Opened	The recipient opened it. Only recorded for verified addresses, where the recipient has accepted tracking.
Soft Bounced, Hard Bounced, Bounced, Rejected, Failed	It was not delivered. The Delivery Details give the receiving server’s reason.
Spam Complaint, Unsubscribed	The recipient reported it as spam or unsubscribed
Suppressed by provider	Your email provider refused to send to the address

A failed email can suspend the address it was sent to, depending on how serious the failure was. The customer’s other addresses are unaffected. See Managing Email Addresses to reactivate it.

Troubleshooting

The customer says they did not receive an email

Find the sent email and check its status.
If it shows Delivered, the customer’s email service accepted it. Ask the customer to check their junk folder and any mail filters. If it is still missing, their email provider is the only one who can trace it.
If it shows a bounce or failure, read the Delivery Details, correct the address if needed, and send again.
If it is still grey after a large bulk send, wait for the queue to clear. If it stays grey, contact support.

While you resolve a delivery problem, the customer can download the invoice from MyAccount.

The customer received an invoice without itemisation

The customer has not given consent for personal data to be emailed. Ask them to verify their address using the link in the email, or send a verification PIN while you are on the phone to them. See Verifying Email Addresses. Then resend the invoice.

Managing Email Addresses: verification, suspended addresses and unsubscribes
Correspondence: creating letters to email
Emailing Customers reference