I've been testing this. And...
Unfortunately it doesn't work. After following all the instructions, veryfing domains, signing emails, and all that stuff, prospect.io generates some bogus reply-to adresses. If I was a prospect, I wouldn't reply to to an email like randomstring_p141922@mail.mydoma... - it doesn't look trustworthy. It looks fake. Looks like a scam.
I tested it. Pretended to be a prospect.
1. Sent an outreach email to my name@gmail.com from name@mydomain.com
2. got an email at name@gmail.com from name@mydomain.com - looks fine so far.
3. Reply-to address is name_uhhaj3@mail.mydomain.com - If I was a real prospect I would never reply to this email. I'd even cosinder marking it as spam.
4. I'm not a real prospect so I replied to name_uhhaj3@mail.mydomain.com
5. I got the reply email from "prospect" at name@mydomain.com
6. The from address is randomstring_fhhsk2@mail.mydomai... - I have no idea which prospect replied. Even if I reply to this email, it's being singed by sendgrid, so there's actually no point of veryfing mydomain.com
I don't think a sale can be made with this tool. What's worse, your support tells me that this is the only way it can be done, and that's how it's supposed to work. Well, to be honest, prospect.io is the only tool I used that makes it impossible to actually continue the conversation with your prospect and close the deal (because I have no idea which prospect replied).
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Maker
@pawelkadysz thank you for your feedback even if I think it's a bit rude ;)
I'm the person replying on support and I would have been very happy to continue this discussion there, on support. But no problem if you prefer to do that here.
As I told you, these strange reply-to addresses are used to track replies. This is also the technique used by other well-known companies like Intercom or LinkedIn. We need to track replies to automatically stop campaigns, for example. Remember that the email address is always use with your name, like this: Your Name < reply-to@email.com >. Most email clients will only display "Your Name".
Only you will see the "send via sendgrid". When a prospect replies we use this "strange" email in the "From" field to avoid loosing emails due to DMARC policies on some of our customers' email servers. If you add DKIM and SPF records to your DNS all your emails are ALWAYS signed by you (including your replies).
If you give a name to your prospect we always use this name in the reply-to field: Prospect Name < strange@email.com > so you should always be able to know which prospect replied.
I can tell you that big companies already use Prospect.io at scale. If you need more information to fully understand how Prospect.io works I'll be more than happy to discuss about these email technical stuff with you. Here on ProductHunt or directly on the support.
@vincenzor It wasn't supposed to be rude. I've used quite a few tools like this (replyapp.io or woodpecker.co) and there was never an issue with either signing domains, tracking replies or generating proper reply-to addresses. That's why I was surprised that a tool so well designed as prospect.io wasn't delivering on those basic features.
But perhaps I don't understand how it works. Perhaps I'm not your target. I thought it was an alternative to the apps I mentioned.
And again, I'm not being rude. (at least I try not to be ;)
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@vincenzor Just bought your software a month ago. It's really well-designed with flexible workflow, but I never expect it has so many bugs and glitches. I detected more than 5 bugs in the first month of using it, and more glitches that I can't even count. I feel like I'm paying you to be your QA member. If you have a good concept like this, please execute it well.
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Maker
@ningding0926 We are currently making a lot of changes on our platform recently and it's true that we do have some issue. Feel free to contact us at support@prospect.io or using the chat and we'll always be fixing these glitches asap.
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@prospect@vincenzor I did. I submitted tons of reports regarding those annoying glitches. Although your customer service team has a really decent attitude, but it doesn't make me feel better about the fact that we are paying to be a QA team. Customers shouldn't be the one picking those errors. You should execute better on your ideas. Make our payment worth for your service.
Does this require a hosted email platform (gmail / google apps / 365 etc) or can I use a hosted company email? myname@domain.com? If it does work with exchange, I see above about DKIM and SPF, but often the initial user in a large company doesn't have corp buy-in, so asking the CIO of 80mm company to edit DKIM or SPF records "so they can make sales emails". The product is very much needed, good job.
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