Studies consistently show low levels of customer satisfaction with the ways in which businesses use email.  Too often companies seem to be using email as a means of avoiding other forms of contact with their customers and their customers aren’t pleased.  Their most common complaints include:

• No confirmation that their email had been received
• No reply or only a late reply received
•  Inappropriate/irrelevant reply received
• Reply can’t be understood

Email based customer service has to date been a let down for most customers. They expect their communications to be given the same attention as a letter or telephone call and instead feel that their emails have largely been ignored.

Customer feelings are confirmed by a report on SME use of email by BenchmarkPortal, a leading source of CRM best practices for contact centers. Conducted in early 2005 the study evaluated 147 SMEs across five sectors: retail, travel and hospitality, financial services, ebusiness, and hi-tech manufacturing.  Some of their key findings were:

• 51% of the companies did not respond at all,
•  70% of the companies failed to respond within 24 hours,
• 79% of the companies responded with an inaccurate and/or incomplete answer

Astonishingly, 40% of online-only businesses, a category that includes online recruiters and shopping comparison sites, failed to reply to customer email enquiries!

And what do customers do when this happens? The answer is simple - they go away.  Forrester Research studied customer behavior and found that 70% of online customers will go to a competitor if they don’t receive a timely response from a company. Only 22% of online customers return to a website after a negative experience.

There are a range of solutions that smaller firms can implement to capitalise on the cost savings and timeliness of emails without turning customers away.

1. Automatically respond to all emails received: People will be more willing to wait for a reply if their initial communication has been acknowledged. Include a commitment to act on the issue and when you will respond fully.
2. Monitor email communications: A monitoring system should be set up that tracks progress of incoming emails and their responses. It should initiate an alarm for any message that hasn’t been responded to by the stated maximum time.
3. Have a suitable response structure: Emails should be answered in the same manner as any other form of communication – politely and with the intention of retaining the customer.
4. Make use of a Frequently Asked Questions (FAQs) file: It’s surprising just how many customer communications are for the same reason; enquiries tend to repeat themselves. Create a database of your most common questions and answers and place them on your website.  It can also be used as a source of content for employees preparing responses to customer emails.
5. Analyse trends in customer communications: A sudden upsurge in complaints about a particular aspect of your company or a rise in enquiries about warranties can be pointers to important trends that are beginning to develop. Analyse all incoming customer communications to spot these trends and keep on top of them.

Email is one of our most valuable channels of modern business communications. It can bring real savings in time and money when applied in areas where customers and companies interact, but only if it’s used wisely.