How to write effective emails to customers

When it comes to writing emails to our customers, our employees have some sort of fear. In this blog, I break that fear by following  7 simple steps on How to write effective emails to customers

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Two things shocked me when I entered the corporate life

1. All work has to be done in a defined process way
2. Everything has to be in emails. Even for the person sitting next to me also, I have to write emails.

In the smaller companies I worked for, we discussed everything, acted on our words, and closed it, emails were not part of our life.

In the corporate career, even before I start my day, there will be hundreds of emails, few I need to respond to without fail

For me writing itself was a challenge leave alone writing effective emails

Immediately after I write an email, I will wait for a response, not from my customer from my boss.

Rameshhhhhh.

If he sounds like that, it means, some mistake in the email and I called for a meeting and then “same blood”

I have gone through the pain of writing bad emails and poor responses from customers. I understand how it hurts personally and our business.

Email is an important piece of our customer communication, if we are missing it; we are missing a good chance of succeeding in our business.

Is, writing an email is that difficult,

No, not at all

I will share with you what I learned from my bosses and through self-learning on How to write effective emails to Customers

Here is the simple seven steps formula; if your employees follow it, they can write effective emails.

1. Don’t write for your English teacher

Because you are writing to your customers, communicating your ideas in simple language is more important than the grammar rules

Look at the above sentence, have you noticed I started the above sentence with “because”, but your English teacher will not allow you to start a sentence with “because” a joining word, she will give you 0 marks. However, am I communicating what I want to say?

Because I am writing to convince my customers -you, not for my English teacher. I am convinced to break the rules.

The point is to get out of the fear of writing perfect English with all the grammar intact.

That’s the first step, follow the below points too

2.     Write in a conversational tone:

Your customers are also human’s beings like you and me; they like a person talking to them more than a corporate speak.

Structure your sentences in a conversational tone. Connect with them in the manner how you speak, avoid corporates speaks; avoid Jargons

Yes, I understand most of us do not speak English but we know what &how to speak in English, use that same thinking, if you have a challenge in start writing in English, a little hack use Google translator, and follow the steps mentioned here. Most likely, you will get it right 90 %

3.     Do not write Paragraphs after Paragraphs:

Forget, what you learned in High Scholl English composition classes all our teachers said “the more you write, the more you score, the bigger the paragraphs the bigger the marks.

Do you like reading big paragraphs, so how do you expect customer loves that

Big paragraphs do not work in customer communication

Our job here is to make our customers’ lives easy, write one idea in one or two sentences maximum. If the idea (subject) needs to be expanded, make it to a maximum of four lines not more than that.

Therefore, your email structure will look like this

Greetings -One line

The objective (goal) of the mail in one or two lines

If the subject needs to be expanded again write in or two lines.

The last line is the call to action item, who, what, and when. That is it.

The best-read emails are in a maximum of 5 to 8 lines carrying only one idea in an email. Not so many conversations happening in one email.

If different subjects or discussion topics need to be done with the same customer, then separate the subject and take it to a different email

Say, for example

If you are asking your customer for an old payment and asking for new order at the same time, then separate that into two emails.

It is easy for the customer also to handle subject-wise and close the email loops.

4.     Consider the reader’s interests, not you:

Does your email have more of you the customer and less of me? Have you put the customers’ / readers interest’s firsts?

Everyone love to see their photo right, see whether your email looks like your customer seeing his photograph in writing,

This is the most difficult part of writing the email, over time this can be mastered.

5. Is your email helpful?

Have you given your customer useful information, Have you written the emails, our customers agree to? Have you created goodwill for your company?

Check the above points are met

A word of caution, if you are emotional, angry, or upset with customers don’t put that in email, hold on, perhaps you can call them and discuss but don’t shout your emotions over emails.

6. Do Spell & Grammar check

I have not talked about grammar this far is that least important. Not really but

Yes, in the order I mentioned, that is the last thing you can look into.  Take care of the Tense Clauses (present, past .future tense); incorrect Tense will confuse the readers.

Except that, feel free to break the grammar rules like conjugations, prepositions, adjectives, etc…  if your writing gives greater clarity and readability to your readers then it’s good to go.

A tip for action: Install the Grammar tool even the free version helps you to spot the basic grammar and spell errors, it will make your life easier.

7. Finally -Read it loud

If all is done… Read your email aloud, do you sound in a way others can understand easily?

If you can afford it, ask one of your friends to read it aloud, hear it, is that what you want to say to your customer

–Yes

Then click send

Hope this will help your employees feel confident in writing effective emails, still if you think a  hands-on training, on How to write effective emails to customers will be helpful, feel free to connect with us.