In our CRM we have a field on the Contact record where a salesperson can chose to have the Contact removed from email our mass-marketing (eg Eloqua sent) email communications.
The field is a simple checkbox.
I inherited the current Eloqua instance I run, and (shame on me for not doing a complete program audit) I discovered a program that was Globally Unsubscribing anyone with this field ticked. There is no program to bring them back, such that if the sales person unchecks the box, they would be re-subscribed.
I know this is bad on so many levels. It doesn't an automated way back to re-subscribe and the Contact's previous subscription preferences, I am assuming, would be lost. Bad, bad, bad, bad. Also, it's inflating our unsubscribes, since in many cases the actual Contact didn't request to be unsubscribed, it was just the salesperson. I know that I need to have two editable fields: A sales Do Not Email field, and a "Contact Requested to be Opted-out."
So, my question is this:
What's the best way to have these Contacts removed from mailing if a sales person simply requests they not be emailed? I am leaning towards using a filter in the Master Exclude function. This would avoid the unsubscribe issue and take care of the emailing part, except that it would also remove people from getting transactional support emails, etc.
Another option would be to build out several email segments with a standard "removes" for various type of unsubscribes.
There are a bunch more options, I am sure, including using the field to trigger a more narrow unsubscribe to a limted set of groups, with a program to bring them back... but that might bring them back even if they weren't subscribed.
Oh this gets REALLY complicated.