Five Traits of Top-Tier Email Customer Service Departments
The day-to-day customer service interactions a retailer has with its consumer base is a pivotal aspect of its business strategy, and while some companies have come to embrace new outlets like social media, real-time chats and conferencing, email will continue to be the primary B2C communication method.
According to a December 2014 poll conducted by Principal Financial Group of U.S. internet users ages 25 to 35, nearly half said they wanted to communicate with retailers by email, with in person the runner-up at 28%. This data is extremely significant, as while some marketers may view email as a digital dinosaur, its use spans demographics and will be pivotal to your company’s bottom line for the foreseeable future. As such, your customer service response via email should be among your strongest lifelines for consumers and Adaptive Imagination can help you get there.
- Set, manage and track your consumer engagements
If you ask most consumers, timeliness is a key factor in their satisfaction with customer service responses, so being active in each step of the process can help you solve these inquires sooner. As a channel, email’s inherent drawback is that it’s not in real-time, so make sure you communicate your system to post automatic acknowledgments, route inquires to agents who are best equipped to handle them, and monitor interactions frequently to ensure performance.
- Utilize a personal style
While automated emails and other snap replies are invaluable, a less formal tone can create a conversational tone and a more engaged consumer. Use positive, clear language to direct your customer away from the issue and geared toward a possible solution.
- Aim for first-contact resolution
There’s nothing customers appreciate more than receiving helpful advice the first time around, so a good rule of thumb for email customer service reps is to include a possible immediate solution to the issue. Once again, this opens up the chance for a conversation between users rather than a correspondence, which can communicate to the customer that the person on the other end cares about the issue and strives to keep going until it’s resolved.
- Provide a knowledge base
With all of the vital information you’ll receive about your business from consumer inquiries and response times, this can add up to a helpful knowledge base that can provide answers to the most commonly asked questions. FAQ pages, consumer testimonials, guest bloggers and other pieces of data can be repurposed as helpful marketing tools, and limit the amount of service responses that need to be made.
- Integrate email with social channels
The structure of your email messages should provide clear and seamless escalation plans for consumers to access any aspect of your security infrastructure. Your emails should contain links to relevant contact and social media pages, product listings and recently viewed products. If consumers are inclined to opt for real-time chat or phone service, these options should be readily available in your emails to streamline the process for users.
