Customer Service Email Should Never Be Overlooked

By Josh Jordan, Senior Contributing Editor to Delight Customers!

Make a quick guess at the number of emails that you receive in a day.

Next think about the types of emails you receive (from customers, from partners, from friends), how frequently you check your email (once a day, once an hour, every ten minutes!), and how you prioritize those messages (customers always first!).

Now change into your customers shoes.

Email is a great communications tool. It gives you a way to clearly state your questions, purpose, plan, and results. It can also be overused and ignored.

Give yourself a refresher on email communications with these few simple tips:

• Subject lines are not the great American Novel: The purpose of a subject line is to summarize your message and get the recipients attention.
• Know who you're emailing: Reply and Reply All are two different buttons. Make sure you know which one you are hitting.

Case in point: You are on an email exchange with a customer and co-workers, you need information from your co-workers to give to the customer. You use the email exchange as a short-cut and don't remove the customer. Your question could be as innocent as what time should the meeting be, to I can't get through to them, you try. Best case you've created confusion, worst case DEFCON 4.

• Copy those who need to know: A carbon copy (CC) is meant to keep people informed of a situation, or event but may not require them to act, or provide input. If you intend to solicit someones opinion, list them in the To: field.

AND Don't Cry Wolf: Make sure when copying others that the message pertains to them. Copying for copying's sake will eventually end up with something important being ignored.

• You took the time to type it, take the time to read it: Before sending any message, run a grammar/spellcheck and re-read your message. (Tip: Set your email system to auto-check for grammar and spelling).

Ask yourself, is the purpose of this email clear? concise? will it elicit the response I'm looking for? It's great to have multiple touches with a client everyday, not so when it's trying to explain your email.

• Pick up the phone: Ever get into a "real-time" conversation on email? Messages fly back and forth as both parties happen to be checking messages at the same time. It's the perfect opportunity to talk to your customer. You know where they are, what they are doing and have something that relates to them to discuss. Take advantage.

Give your email a little tune-up. Make sure you are doing what you think you are. It takes seconds to send and can take days (or more) to fix!

Josh can be reached at josh.d.jordan@gmail.com

For more tips on email and email etiquette, click here, or for a short-list of tips visit: http://email.about.com/od/emailnetiquette/tp/core_netiquette.htm