You want to
communicate with customers via email—it is quick and virtually cost free,
and you can impart important information and promote your products and services
to a wide audience.
However, you need to avoid some common misuses of email messaging:
• Over-communicating
• Under-communicating
• Misleading messages
• Messages that induce stress in customers
This article provides some tips about what to think about before you hit the
send button.
PROBLEMS WITH COMMUNICATION
Over the past few years, more and more companies communicate with customers
via email. This makes perfect sense—it is an inexpensive channel for
the providers, and customers can choose whether or not to opt in and when—and
if—to read the messages. This latter factor is similar to the way customers
behave with snail mail. You can rip open your mail immediately, throw it
in the trash without opening it, or let it sit on a table until you’re
ready. What I have noticed, however, is that, because email is so cheap—and
so quick to send—some bad habits are emerging. Here are some do’s
and don’ts you should consider when using the email channel to communicate
with customers.
OVER-COMMUNICATION
Too Often
I do a lot of shopping online. And the vendors are usually great at communicating.
However, some vendors really reach out and touch you far too often: an email
notification thanking you for visiting the site, thanks for your order, here
is you order confirmation, here is the anticipated shipping date, your order
has been queued for shipping, you order has been shipped, you should receive
you order in X days, did you receive your order, hope you liked your order.
And all these are separate emails! Enough already.
And online marketing is also over the top! When I agree to be contacted via
email about special sales and offers, I don’t expect to get one or
more emails every day!
Here is a specific example of over-communication from a trusted and well-respected
provider, my online pharmacy, CVS Caremark. I had transferred about 10 different
prescriptions to the online pharmacy. I received four emails for each prescription
I transferred: acknowledgement and thank you, we are checking into it, it
has been approved, and it is on its way. That’s 40 emails, all coming
within the same two or three days. Further, the emails didn’t say which
prescription it was for! (Legally, they can’t indicate that on email,
but it was frustrating for me nonetheless—which leads to some under-communication,
see below.)1
Customers have limited time and overflowing email inboxes. So think before
you send. Here are some do’s and don’ts on over-communicating:
•
Do keep track of how often you have touched a customer via email about a single
relevant topic.
•
Don’t send them updates on every step in your internal process (e.g.,
has been approved or is in the queue)—keep the communication to things
that impact them directly.
•
Do consolidate related information into a single, timely message.
•
Don’t send multiple messages about the same topic (e.g., shipping is
approved, queued, sent, and billed).
•
Do use email messaging for promotions and special programs if the customer
has requested them. But target your messages to that customer or customer segment.
•
Don’t have a “special” every day! The customer won’t
pay attention because she knows another, and perhaps better, offer is coming
in the morning. Once a week is often enough to spark interest in your sales
and discounts.
Too Much Information
As the kids say when their parents talk about their own sex lives, TMI!
Although this isn’t done all that often, occasionally, a provider will
send emails explaining internal issues that customers don’t need to know.
For example, when your server has gone down, a single email to apologize with
a brief explanation is adequate. Don’t send me the complete diagnostic
report about what happened. I don’t care. Similarly, don’t send
me detailed information on product lines or programs I don’t care about.
For example, if there are changes in the terms and conditions of a program
I haven’t signed up for, I don’t need to know!
•
Do make sure you are succinct in your messages, providing just the information
that customers care about.
•
Don’t tell everything about all your offerings to all your customers.
Make sure the information is relevant to the people you send it to.
UNDER-COMMUNICATION
Not Often Enough
I received an invitation to be a keynote speaker at an industry event. I sent
in my presentation outline and all the necessary paperwork, and then nothing—until
about a week and a half before the actual event. I was the keynote speaker
for one of the days (featured in the marketing materials), my expenses would
be taken care of, etc., and please send my travel itinerary and my lunch
preference (the chicken or the fish). By this time, I had assumed I wasn’t
selected and hadn’t made any plans. Luckily, I was able to move a few
meetings and schedule a last minute flight. But it was very off putting not
to have received any information in the six weeks from the first message.
Just as a company can over communicate when something goes wrong, the opposite
is true. When a server has gone down, I don’t want the entire technical
story, but I do want to be told that it happened (it wasn’t my computer’s
fault). Or when I have backordered something, and the availability date keeps
slipping, I do want to know so that I have the option of canceling the order.
•
Do put yourself in the customer’s head and think about when and how often
they want to be notified.
•
Don’t assume that the customer assumes that no news is good news.
Too Little Information
In the CVS Caremark example above, I received all these emails about transferred
prescriptions without knowing which drugs they were for. To be honest, this
didn’t impact me a lot for the prescriptions that went through the
process correctly (except that it took time to open the emails and delete
them). However, when one message said that the prescription wasn’t
approved and that action needed to be taken, not having the name of the drug
was a big problem! I had a prescription number, but who remembers those?
Also, there really wasn’t clear information about what I was supposed
to do about it!