This is the second times I was asked by our customers why they do not get a Read Receipt from their recipient. To confuse the matter even further, they have also checked the Deliver Receipt option too in their Microsoft Outlook.
Read receipt feature found in Outlook Express
This is my reply:
“Apparently, you have checked both the Deliver & Read Receipt features when sending out your message. I must admit, they are obsolete and can be confusing sometimes. This is the reason why you can’t find the same features in Gmail, and in our Webmail as well.
A Deliver Receipt give the sense to sender that your email has reached the mailbox of your recipient. But, in actual fact, it is not. It arguely means the email reached the recipient’s mail server, and thing can still go wrong. To further confuse the situation, not all server will trigger a Deliver Receipt, again this is not a full proof features.
The Read Receipt is more or less having the same problem. Your recipient will be prompted to send a Read Receipt when they open your email. But this happen to Outlook and some email clients only, not on those with Gmail or many of other webmail users. Also, Outlook client can manually turn off this features and you will never know if they have read the message.
I am sorry to say that, I would suggest you to not using the two features.
Instead, if a message is not delivered, you should get a returned mail. Without a returned mail, your email should go through and reach your recipient’s mail server. Assuming no problem on their mail server, your recipient should most probably receive your message.”