Adhering to fundamental courtesies in talks with customers is an effective way to acquire their confidence and devotion. Email’s raw power in digital marketing is hard to beat when it comes to interacting with customers and getting the most out of advertising dollars. Emails that are rude, insensitive, or otherwise poorly written are annoying and unpleasant to receive.
The question is how to stop your customers from repeating the same mistakes. Adhere to proper email etiquette and consider your clients’ time, attention, and needs. Here’s are ways to respect your customers’ time.
- Understand (and cater to) your target audience
- Train new employees
- Keep it simple
- Always use accurate topic lines
- Know when to reply and when not to
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Understand (and cater to) your target audience
The target audience has a significant impact on the level of professionalism that is appropriate. The tone of your email exchanges with customers sets the tone for your brand, so if your company’s voice is lighthearted and witty, your clientele will expect the same from you. What happens if you send an email to the CFO of the same company? Clarity and professionalism are the way to proceed. Think about the fact that being casual with a close friend is not rude. However, the same conversational tone could not be maintained with an unidentified CEO or a law enforcement official. Considering your target market is essential before delivering any kind of speech or writing.
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Train new employees
While on-the-job training can be helpful for developing some skills, it is essential that all new hires receive instruction on proper email protocol. It’s especially important for younger workers who may be more accustomed to texting than email. Nearly everyone could stand to benefit from a refresher on the many tools available for improving business communications. Taking precautions to avoid making as many mistakes as possible can pay dividends.
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Keep it simple
If you want to gain your customers’ respect, you need to keep your email interaction straightforward. In light of the fact that the average person receives dozens, if not hundreds, of emails daily. It’s a great way to waste your customers’ time if you send them long, drawn-out emails. Your emails should be clear and to the point.
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Always use accurate topic lines
Respect for your clients’ time can be demonstrated in a number of ways, and one of them is by using accurate subject lines when communicating with them via email, as reported by Selling Power. Customers’ time is wasted if you employ subject lines that are misleading, vague, or have nothing to do with the content of the email. If you want to fix this, you need to make your topic lines as precise and explicit as possible.
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Know when to reply and when not to
Aware of the protocol required to respond to everyone in a threaded email conversation. We’ve all become mired in an unending email thread that has nothing to do with any of us. This behavior could be irritating because it would waste time and space in everyone’s inbox. The “reply all” function should be used sparingly in email. When replying to an email, you can select to reply to everyone if there are other people on cc who need to be kept in the loop, other people on the email have the same question as you, or you are instructed to do so.