The Eiffel Tower pic is more interesting than a Customer Service pic!
Last month I was working in Paris with a company that invests a considerable amount of time and energy in customer service.
They are a successful eRetailer and for them customer service is an investment not a cost.
They have several multilingual teams whom they train to be the very best in delivering customer service via email.
I know this sounds maddening but it’s very hard to speak to someone in this company if you have a query about the product you bought.
You have to email them. Just the sort of thing to make my blood pressure soar.
Very deliberately this company aims to train both employee and customer to communicate via email.
I’m sure that you’ve experienced grotty, poorly written emails that are robotic and automated.
Well, that’s where the opportunity lies!
In deciding to give great customer service via email this company knows that customers will naturally talk about them and how good they are.
Customers who come into contact with their customer service team automatically become unwitting marketing agents.
How clever is that?
Some things to think of
If you have such a team or find yourself writing customer service emails, here are a few things to think of
- Brand values – are you communicating in a way that’s congruent with the brand values of your business (If you don’t know what these are…oops!)
- Analsye your customer’s use of English, word selection, salutation/farewell and email layout – it’s a smorgasbord of clues as to who they are and how they think…
- Create categories for their emotional state and why each needs a different type of written response
- Consider the amount of time you should realistically spend on different types of email
- Your need for specific digital communication skills as everyone becomes more reliant on email.
Stuff like that.
Because email is used every day, very few companies give serious consideration to the benefits of learning how to write better than their competitors.
As digital communication increases, you’ll quickly be able to spot those that ‘get it’ by they way they respond and write to you.
You won’t even think about tying to pick up the phone because you will have the confidence that they can solve your customer service problem via email.
You’ll be very content to have an email relationship with them.
For those who feel this is important, here’s an outline of my training course on eMail Customer Service.
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