Every email you send is a customer service email.

 

If you do business online, there are times when you send your customers, prospects and subscribers an email or two.

 

The emails you send tend to fall within one of three categories.

1. Promotional emails with which you attempt to make a sale.

 

2. Acknowledgement emails which are sent out automatically in response to some action taken by someone on your site. For example, when someone makes a purchase.

 

3. Customer service emails which are sent out in response to an inquiry, question or complaint sent in by someone from your site, or through email by someone who has made a recent purchase.

Each of these three types of emails requires a slightly different approach.

 

Their purposes are different, and each should be optimized to perform their respective tasks.

 

However, they are ALL of them “customer service” emails...

 

That is to say, every email you send, regardless of its purpose, offers you an opportunity to deepen the relationship you have with each customer.

 

And this is important, because your relationships with online customers will always be tenuous and vulnerable.

 

You are surrounded by online competition, and consumers have a vast array of tools to compare your performance with other vendors, whether through Bizrate, Amazon or any of the other comparison engines or sites that host reviews and opinions.

 

In other words, your best customer today could be gone tomorrow.

 

Given this state of transparency and vulnerability, you can’t afford to take genuine care of your customers only in those emails designated as “customer service” emails.

 

Add a personal touch to every email

 

Customer care isn’t just about getting the task completed, or a complaint “resolved”. It’s also about communicating with your customer or prospect in a human, accessible and empathetic way.

 

It’s about leaving your customer with the feeling that he or she has been respectfully taken care of by a real person.

 

Some companies do this very well with their customer service emails. They hire real people to type in real responses.

 

But few companies apply the same, human touch across their promotional and automated emails.

 

Make every email a moment of human contact

 

Every point of email contact provides you with an opportunity to build on the relationship you have with your customers, prospects and subscribers.

 

Take advantage of the human, personal potential of email.

 

Add a human element even to those automated emails, and your sales emails.

 

Use language that that has a conversational and personal touch.

 

Be genuine. Write as if you were speaking across the counter of a bricks and mortar store.

 

It’s a great way to build loyalty and increase retention.

 

 

 

 

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