Nowadays, we communicate more and more through email. We use
Email communication to write something to friends, relatives, colleagues or
clients. Whoever the recipient of your email, it is becoming very important
that you write email effectively. As you
know, by writing effective email, you can save your time, other person’s time
and you can win more trust & confidence from the other end.
Give Reply of Email As soon as Possible
More and more people contact each other through email. Even
if they mention directly or not, they expect prompt responses. One of the study
by Jupiter Research indicates that 35% of customers expect a reply within six
hours, an additional 55% expect a response within 24 hours. Though many people
focus on response time, content is just as important. The same study indicated
that lack of a thorough response (45%) will cause on-line customers to view a
company negatively when considering future purchases.
Learn the art of writing Email
Poorly crafted emails will generate additional emails back
& forth, which potentially eating up more of your time. Worse, they can
drive unnecessary calls to your most costly channel – your phone. And at that
point, customers are bound to be angry and frustrated.
Here are some tips for writing email responses that are both
thorough and appropriate:
1. Format your
response so that it’s easy to read on a screen. Do not write email using very long
sentences, which are lengthy horizontally. Each line must be short. Ideally,
write 5-6 words in each line only and not more than that.
2. Make sure
the subject line is concise and meaningful to the recipient…not just a generic
“Response from Marketing Team” But also be careful that it doesn’t look like
spam.
3. Have one
subject per paragraph. Mention this separately by blank lines, so that its easy
to read and understand.
4. Be brief.
Use as few words as possible to convey your message. More is not better when it
comes to email. An email is not perceived as an electronic letter.
5. Use simple,
declarative sentences. Write for a third or fourth grade audience, particularly
if you’re creating templates that are sent automatically. You do not know the
education level of your sender or the sender’s level of comfort with the
English language.
6. Be sensitive
to the tone of the original email. If the sender is upset because of an error
on
your part, acknowledge the error. Clearly state what you are
doing to correct the situation.
7. Make sure
you answer all the questions posed in the original inquiry. A partial answer
frustrates the sender and results in additional contacts. It also makes the
company sending the response look inept.
8. Make it
clear what actions you will be taking next and when the writer can expect the
next contact from you.
9. Don’t ask
for an order number/case number or any old information which you remember out
of your mind only when one is included in the original email…sounds pretty
basic, but sometimes people miss very obvious info in email.
10. Don’t just
tell the sender to go to your web site. In many cases, they have already been
to
the web site and couldn’t find the answers they were looking
for. If you want them to go back to the web site, provide a direct link to the
exact information the reader needs.
No comments:
Post a Comment