Most of your customers are reading the emails you send on their phones or tablets. And they’re reading your messages while they’re on the go, or doing a couple of other things. Like you, your customers are busy.
You can make it easy for customers to quickly read and understand your message by doing just a few key things. Just as companies design their websites for customers to access information with just a few clicks, you need to structure your emails, so that they can be quickly read, and understood.
Today, I’m giving you four things you can do to make your emails easier for customers to read and understand, by making them scannable.
I was behind a truck recently that had a cool LED lighted border around the license plate. Little red lights danced around and framed the driver’s message. Here’s what this driver had displayed on his flashy license plate border:
I was behind a truck recently that had a cool LED lighted border around the license plate. Little red lights danced around and framed the driver’s message. Here’s what this driver had displayed on his flashy license plate border:
Empathy, Casual Language, and Personal Pronouns are the secret to amazing complaint response emails
Have you heard of Blue Apron? It’s a grocery delivery service, basically. You get recipes and perfectly proportioned ingredients sent to you, and all you have to do is whip up gourmet meals in your kitchen. I use services like this literally every week. I just don’t have time to grocery shop with my busy kids and my travel schedule.
Well, the first time I tried Blue Apron, my food box came with a little problem. My bag of lentils had a small hole in it, and the lentils spilled.
I emailed Blue Apron that morning, and two hours later this is the response I got:
Some of you know photography is my passion. Whenever I can steal away to take photos, I seize the opportunity. I had just such an opportunity yesterday.
Yesterday afternoon, after wrapping up a big and successful project for a client, I sat down to edit some black and white photos from my family’s Thanksgiving dinner. Earlier this week I updated my iMac to OS X Yosemite, Mac’s latest upgrade. To my horror, and I mean absolute horror, my photo editing software was not compatible with Mac’s latest upgrade.
After a couple of moments of sheer panic, I realized that certainly there was a quick fix for this. I’d either remove the Mac upgrade or I’d contact the photo editing software maker and get this sorted out. So, I emailed Nik Collection and explained my problem.
Within an hour or so, I got this reply from Nik Software (You’ll need to click the image to enlarge)
Nik Software blew me away with this email response. Here’s what I like about it.
It was a quick. I fully expected to have to wait 2 or 3 days for a response. So many of my corporate vendors take days to respond, so my expectation for a quick response from Nik was low.
They proactively also emailed my business email address. I sent the email using my personal gmail account, but I must have also had my business email on file. Nik, perhaps thinking I might have quicker access to my business email, also emailed me at work. That really helped me out as I was sitting at my work computer when the email arrived. This literally wowed me.
Instructions were clear and easy to follow. The simplicity and clarity of the instructions to solve my problem were right on the mark. I was able to instantly follow the links, upgrade my software and boom – have access to my video editing suite.
There was an option to reply to the email. I don’t have to tell you how rare it is today to be able to reply to a customer service email. Companies don’t want you to email them back. They’d rather you go back to the website and fill out a tedious form.
The email offered an apology. “I am sorry you are experiencing problems with your Nik Collection product keys.” I perceived this as a sincere apology and that impressed me.
How do your customer service response emails measure up?
Pull out one of your email responses to a customer. How does it measure up to my reaction to the Nik Collection email? Does your email surprise and delight customers? Or does it frustrate customers?
Here’s what I want you to do.
Look for ways to make the customer experience over email as quick and smooth as possible. And add a little surprise and delight when you can. When you do, you’ll make someone’s day with your great emails and you’ll have people bragging and blogging about you!
Here’s one of the photos I recently edited with my Nik Software (My niece on Thanksgiving)
Last week I talked to you about how to ruin your corporate reputation in just one email thread and I shared an email exchange that just takes the cake. I got a lot of reaction from that blog post. People were utterly appalled at the content and tone of the emails a company representative sent to a customer. Many asked for permission to share my example with their employees. Lots of Customer Service Supervisors and Managers emailed me asking for tips on how to ensure their employees are not sending out bad emails to customers. One thing’s for certain: People are concerned about their email communication with consumers.
For those of you concerned with how your employees are communicating with customers over email, I am holding a 90-minute webinar entitled “Before You Hit Send” to help companies craft professional and friendly emails to customers. The webinar will be held February 16th at 1pm ET. If you miss it, you can get the recording. Below you will find the details.
Myra is often called into companies to help them overcome the perception of “robotic” email responses and to help employees craft personable and friendly emails to customers. In this very special web event, Myra brings her “email intervention” to the public. Join Myra and learn how to craft personal, friendly, error-free emails that not only address customer’s issues, but also leaves them saying “wow.”
