Most of your business communication will be done via email and when you’re emailing customers, the way that you present yourself can have a big impact. If you aren’t conducting yourself appropriately through email, you can lose their business. The smallest of mistakes can put off a customer and completely change their perception of your company. When you’re sending emails in future, don’t just fire them off without thinking about it and make sure you avoid these mistakes.
Not Matching Their Tone
People often make the mistake of thinking you should always be incredibly formal in an email to customers but that isn’t always best. What you should be doing when you reply to an email is trying to mirror the customer’s tone. If somebody sends you a message in a very informal chatty tone and you reply in a formal, businesslike way, they’ll see that as you being quite cold and standoffish, even if that wasn’t your intention. Equally, if somebody is very formal in their email and you send them a chatty response, they might see that as a lack of respect. Always gauge the tone that they’re using and mirror it so you don’t risk accidentally offending them.
Email Signatures
Having a good corporate email signature is vital for a few reasons; firstly, it’s a good way of ensuring that everybody you email has your company details to hand. The logo on there also helps to improve brand recognition. Beyond that, it makes you look professional. If people are receiving emails without a signature on them, it automatically gives the impression that you aren’t a large, successful business.
Writing Too Much
A good email response contains all of the information that the customer needs in a concise, easy to digest way. If somebody opens an email that’s 3 pages long and it takes you ages to get to the point, it’s frustrating for them to have to read through all of that before getting to the one or two lines which actually answer their question. Half the time, people will open it, see how long it is and then not bother reading it at all. You’re not writing them a novel here, you’re just trying to give them the information that they need in a polite way and cut out anything else.
Impulse Replies
When you get a snotty email from an angry customer, it might be tempting to blast of a hostile reply of your own, but as soon as you send that email, it’s there forever. If you’re rude in an email, it’ll be on social media in seconds and before you know it, it will have been shared thousands of times. That’s thousands of people that now have a bad impression of your company and won’t buy products from you. The beauty of email is that you’ve got time to think carefully about your response so, while it’s important that you don’t leave customers waiting for ages, you can leave it a couple of hours and think about how best to reply to keep the customer happy and resolve their problem.
Make sure you’re avoiding these mistakes in any email you send, otherwise, you could easily lose business.