Overusing ISP contacts

I’ve written frequently about personal contacts at ISPs and how the vast majority of delivery problems can be solved without picking up the “Bat Phone” and having someone at the ISP do something. Al touches on the same subject today, blogging about his recent experiences having to contact “Barry” multiple times for many different issues.
Al resolves

My goal going forward is this: I will not reach out to an individual person at an ISP more than once every two months or so, if I can at all help it. If I’m contacting them more than that, then something is broken, and that broken something is probably on my side of things. All of the big ISPs have published processes that work fine for almost any eventuality. That’s why those processes exist, to help people sending mail work through any issues observed.

As I said in my The Secret To Dealing with ISPs post, the vast majority of issues can be handled on the sender side without involvement of anyone at the ISP.
Related Posts:
Delivery Emergencies
Troubleshooting Yahoo Delivery
Following The Script
Deliverability Emergencies from the ISP Side of the Desk

Tension at the DMA
Rescuing reputation

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Compliance vs. Deliverability

Most people I know handling delivery issues for senders have some version of delivery or deliverability in their job title. But as I talk to them about what they do on a daily basis, their role is as much policy enforcement and compliance as it is delivery. Sure, what they’re telling customers and clients is how to improve delivery, but that is often in the context of making customers comply with relevant terms and conditions.
Some delivery folks also work the abuse desk, handling complaints and FBLs and actually putting blocks on customer sends.
I think the compliance part of the delivery job description that is often overlooked and severely downplayed. No one likes to be the bad guy. None of us like handling the angry customer on the phone who has had their vital email marketing program shut down by their vendor. None of us like the internal political battles to convince management to adopt stricter customer policies. All of these things, however, are vital to delivery.
Despite the lack of emphasis on compliance and enforcement they are a vital and critical part of the deliverabilty equation.

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Some marketers, even large marketing companies, send mail from email addresses that are unread. Justin Premick posted a list of reasons this is a very, very bad idea. Be sure to read the comments, too.

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Deliverability is a term so many people use every day, but what do we really mean when we use it? Is there an accepted definition of deliverability? Is the concept different than delivery?
At a recent conference I was running a session talking about email delivery, senders and the roles senders play in the email industry and at that particular organization. The discussion went on for a while, and the subject of deliverability versus delivery came up. J.D. Falk had a comment about the difference that resonated with me. Paraphrased, he said:

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