Social media is gaining popularity as an area for customers to air their grievances because it is quicker and more accessible. While this might be true, there are still people who choose to use emails or pick up the phone to contact a customer care representative. The downside to email customer service is that sometimes it takes the customer representatives a lot of time to get back to the customers. This is why some just opt for the web chat option on the site or to chat with whoever handles the social networking site. But emails can still impact and influence customer service with the help of email management tools. Emails can also be used to improve customer service of a company. Here are some ways your company can improve customer care service using emails.
<img class="aligncenter size-large wp-image-5492" src="https://www.crowdreviews.com/blog/wp-content/uploads/2016/08/How-Your-Emails-Can-Impact-and-Influence-Customer-Service-2-1024×450.jpg" alt="How Your Emails Can Impact and Influence Customer Service” width=”1024″ height=”450″ />
Enhances Customer Service
Most companies offer different channels for customer service. There are phone call support, email support, social media, live chat, a help desk in the office and self-service, where customers can try to solve their own problem by reading the FAQ section of the website. According to a survey done by Marketing Sherpa, 70% of the respondents still prefer to use email as their channel to contact customer support. Here are some reasons email enhances customer service:
- Email as a channel for customer service offers a properly targeted communication with the customer. An email has more chance of having a detailed explanation of what a customer is experiencing. This will give more information for the agent to solve the problem and communicate with the client.
- With the help of the top email management tools, customer care agents can give timely responses and in-depth solutions to the problems. It used to be a problem that when you email customer care support, it will take them forever to get back to you. But the development of software to help manage emails has helped in decreasing the waiting time for a response.
- An email will ensure that there is a record of all the conversation between the agents and the customers. The comprehensive history of the correspondence will be saved in the database for future reference.
- Email applications are easier to integrate with other software. Other software like customer relationship management software even offers its own built in email application.
Email Etiquettes and Standard Rules
Currently there are about four billion email addresses worldwide which is definitely a bigger number than that of social media users. Social media users are currently at about two billion as of 2015. With so many emails being sent and received from those four billion accounts, your customer care has to stand out to be noticed. Following standard rules and etiquettes will make sure that you will have a glowing review from customers. Some tips for email etiquettes and rules are as follows:
- Use proper capitalization, punctuation and correct spelling. It would seem very improper if a reply received from a customer care representative contains spelling errors. No one will take your emails seriously if a simple grammar and spelling check hasn’t been done before hitting that send on your email management software.
- Be professional but still inviting. You have to be professional when replying to emails but not closed off. You should be formal yet offering a conversational tone. You want the customer to trust you and give you the details you need to solve their problems. Do not joke in your emails. Do not use abbreviations that a layman might not understand. Also leave smiley faces and other symbols to personal emails, they should not appear on customer care service emails.
- Be concise and precise with your words. You want to send short messages but still able to convey the instructions and necessary information that your client needs. Be sure to write it a way that is easy for your client to read. Using bullets and numbered instructions might help.
Email as a Marketing Strategy
It is not part of a customer service representative’s job to market, but any opportunity to do so should be taken advantage of. Email contact is a gateway for email marketing. You could get the permission of the client to send them relevant emails. But only if they give you their permission, unsolicited emails are called spam. Spam will lead to customers not contacting you again. Here are some tips for email marketing:
- If by any chance the customer agreed to receive offers and newsletter from you, be sure that you will only send them relevant content. For example, they opt in for information on the best new email tracking tools available in the market. Don’t send them offers on plants and animal care.
- When they agreed to receive emails from you, they also chose an option on how often they want to receive emails. Be sure to stick to that timeline so they won’t be overwhelmed with too many emails from you.
- Those who subscribe for emails from you should also have the option to unsubscribe anytime. Your client might want to receive emails today but might change their mind tomorrow. Give them the option to opt out totally from receiving emails.
- Craft your email properly. Avoid words that may make your email seems like a spam. You don’t want to end up on the spam folder, because then your efforts will be wasted.
Make Email Available
According to a survey done by eDigital, email customer service has a satisfaction rate of 61%, coming next to live chat with 73% satisfaction levels. But not every site will offer the live chat option, so making email available as a customer service option is very necessary. Be sure that email is available and visible in your website so any clients can have the option to contact you anytime about it. When you offer email as a customer service option, expect that an avalanche of emails will arrive. Be prepared by employing email tracking software for your agents. This will help them handle the emails that arrive. Some software will even offer the option to extract the essential contents of an email so your agents wouldn’t need to read the entirety of the email. This will save them time and allow them to answer more emails during their work shift. Read reviews of email management software to know which ones offer the option to extract significant content.
Workflow Automation
Without proper email management, emails that are received will just be given to agents one by one. This would require that a supervisor will receive all the emails and assign it to agents under him or her. This is time consuming and not efficient both for the supervisor and the agents. And will cause the emails to pile up before they can be attended to. This might be a big hindrance to great customer service. Getting email management tools that will automate the workflow can be a big help to better addressing the needs of the clients.
Automating the workflow will mean that emails are sent automatically to agents that can best answer their queries. This will ensure that a qualified agent will get to answer emails that they have an expertise on.
Set Timescales
For customers to be satisfied with your service, you have to answer in a timely manner. Don’t make them wait for days just to have answers to their problems. This will ensure that they won’t come back to your company as repeat customers. According to Marketing Metrics, you are 60-70% more likely to sell to an existing customer. So you want to keep your customers, and that won’t happen if your customer service takes a lot of time to get back to clients. Most customers require their customer representatives to get to them in about six hours. Set this target for all the emails that you receive in your customer service department. You probably have agents that work in shifting schedules for 24 hours a day; this will make answering emails in 6 hours very possible.
Answer the Query
The best way to a great customer service is of course, to address the complaints. It doesn’t matter if you can answer in a matter of minutes if the main problem they were contacting you in the first place was not addressed. If you want to keep repeat customers, make sure that you answer their queries. Email list management will make sure that all queries and complaints are addressed because the software will ensure no email is left unanswered but the proper answer or response will depend on the agent. Read email management tool reviews to know which software can offer that emails will be managed properly.
Some say that emails are being replaced with collaboration software. For some this might be true but email will always be a big factor in customer service. So instead of scrapping it, work it to your advantage and use it to impact and influence customer service. Use the top email management tools to guarantee that all emails that come to your work are addressed properly.
Want to know the best email management software to help with customer service? Head on to CrowdReviews and find out.
Trevor Price
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