I've been working in the web hosting field for quite a while now and out of all the support calls that we get, at least 75% relate to email.  This isn't due to the fact that our email service is unreliable when compared to other's. Most of the support requests end up being caused by something out of our control.  It's also not due to our customers being less technically inclined then other customers.  The higher volume of email related support requests is due solely to the fact that email is a terrible medium for the important business communications that our customers use it for.

Here are five reasons why email is a terrible communications medium for businesses.

1. Servers go down, networks fail, and hard drives crash.

No matter how well built or redundant a network is, something will go wrong at one point or another.  When it does, the calls start rolling in.  When a person sends them a message, they expect to have it in front of them within seconds.  When that expectation is broken, things get tricky.  The spreadsheet that you need in order to prepare for the meeting that you have in an hour was in your email?  Too bad your hard drive crashed and it's gone.  You have to get a build out before you can leave for the day and are waiting on the specs from Sales in order to start?  That stinks because the network is down and sales doesn't know that their email can't get to you.

Problems like these are caused by problems in the systems. They are aggrevated by the fact that users assume that email will always work and will always be nearly instant when, in fact, that is not always true.
 

2. Spam Filters can make messages disappear.

Spam is the bane of any systems administrator's existence.  And if people knew the trouble that we go to to keep it out of their inbox, we'd all get medals (fat chance).  No spam filter is 100% precise, though, and invariably some legitimate email will be caught.  Most spam filters will send an email listing the messages caught in the filter and, 9 times out of 10, this message gets deleted while unread.

Oftentimes people have no idea an email is coming to them, so when an email is caught by the spam filter it goes totally unnoticed.  Sales emails are notorious for this since the customer usually initiates the conversation.

We had one customer who ran an entire marketing campaign that relied on email from his website.  This was fine until he found out that his web server's IP was blacklisted and most of the email he thought he should have been getting was going to junk mail.  He lost 2 weeks worth of clients because of his late reaction.

3. Users assume the recipient got the message.

When you make a call, if the person on the other end doesn't answer, you call back.  When you send an email, you assume they got it and finish up with whatever else you are doing.  If you were expecting a reply, you might bother checking back a couple hours later.  If not, then whatever information you were trying to send will probably just be lost.  This often results in missed opportunities and greatly increases the amount of time that it takes for a team to get a project done.

4. The written word is easily misunderstood.

A single word can mean hundreds of different things depending on the way you look and sound when you say it.  That's the beauty of language.  Unfortunately, it's also one of the limits of the written word.  Because of this, miscommunication in email is very common and has the potetial to ruin a perfectly healthy business relationship.

5. It's less secure than you think.

Email is still sent primarily in plain-text over the internet.  There are hundreds of ways for people to intercept emails before they reach you and read whatever is in them.  This is fine if you are talking about timmy's baseball game, but what if you are recieving a customer list or, worse yet, a list with sensitive financial information in it.  Also don't forget that once the files are stored on your computer, they can still be compromised if your machine is hacked.


I'm not really sure what a better option than email is.  Perhaps that's the  problem.  Email has become so ingrained into business that it will either have to morph into a better version of itself, or something else will have to rise up and take it's place.  One thing is for sure, though, email in it's present form does leave a lot to be desired.