Email Excellence
Marcia Barhydt writes a bi-weekly column for The Brampton News, www.thebramptonnews.com , about customer service, as well as being a freelance reporter covering people, topics and events of interest in Brampton. Marcia also writes and edits content of marketing materials for her own clients. Visit her at http://www.willowtree.ca/
I remember when the advent of email was promising to save us all an incredible amount of time in our busy workdays. But……… something went wrong, I think. We now spend more time dealing with email than dealing with actual people face-to-face. And don't even talk to me about text messaging instant messaging – my high school English teacher would be flipping in her grave!
Fortunately, there are a few easy guidelines that help make our email conversations more user- friendly and an effective tool to showing our customer his value to us.
1. Acknowledge receipt of all of your emails daily. Yes, daily. If you're unable to do that, there's a really simple solution – use an auto-responder. When you have an auto-responder in place, it will automatically and immediately send an email back to your customer saying you've received her email. That's especially important when you can't answer emails daily because it lets your customer know that her message to you isn't lost in cyberspace and that you value her time. An auto-responder should include precise information about when you will respond and it's your responsibility to ensure that it happens. Your credibility is at stake here.
2. Keep your customer informed if you have any additional difficulties or delays dealing with her email requests. It's essential to keep your customer in the loop at all times. And there's a tremendous advantage to emailing him if you see a delay about to happen. Don't hide your head in the sand and think your customer won't notice, because he will. And then you've lost more credibility. Great customer service needs to anticipate anything and everything that affects our customers.
3. Confirm your solutions with your customer. It seems to be common now that many people just make the solution happen and assume their customer will notice that they've completed the request. Don't make this assumption -- use this as another opportunity to touch your customer. Your customer will be impressed with your thoroughness and your consideration.It's a perfect way to score extra brownie points.
4. STOP SENDING JOKES. We all like to receive funny, inspirational, motivational, cute emails. But this is a very personal option and it's never one that you can assume about any business communication. I continue to be amazed at the number of my colleagues who send me non-business emails. I have no idea why they would imagine I'm interested in what they're sending me, simply because we've never discussed this very personal preference. Keep your personal emails to people you know for sure like receiving them. Your customer's time is important – don't waste it.
5. Treat email just like all other contacts with your customer. Email is yet another opportunity to ensure your customer of her value to you and your company, to anticipate her needs and to exceed her expectations. Email can be a wonderful communications tool for creating customer loyalty. Use it as the very effective tool it can be and guarantee yourself of your customer's delight.
Email is a wonderful tool to enhance the frequency and methods you can use to include your customer in all the details, which will make for an enhanced customer relationship. By using email effectively, you'll guarantee an even better relationship with your customer.
Like all great customer service, it's that simple.
© Willowtree Customer Service 2006
