There are many frustrating things involved in operating a business.
One of them is emailing the customer service of a vendor. Like a software you use for your business. Or a service or some type of product.
The situation almost always starts off wrong. Just by nature. Something is askew. It’s not working right and you’re not sure why. You can’t figure it out. You’re frustrated. You hope the vendor can solve it, but you’re not sure.
It’s not a good state of mind to be writing an email to customer support that has a high likelihood of getting fast results.
Here are a few tips for writing these emails…
1. Find The Best Email Address
Some companies will have specific email addresses for customer service and support. These email addresses often go to the team of support staff and the first to see it will read and either act on the issue or forward to the right person.
So knowing the right email address can obviously speed things up.
If possible, look at the business website to find the email. It’s usually there.
The first option many take is to email their main contact, such as an account manager, at the company and explain the issue. That can be totally fine. But it usually then requires the manager to forward the email. And if the manager is busy that can take time and opens things up for confusion and getting lost in translation.
So do your best to find the right email. Even if you have to ask your contact for the support email.
2. Announce Who You Are And What Your Problem Is
Even though email software is great at showing the recipient who you are, it’s still good to state your name and organization right away in the first line of the email.
Hi – This is Dayne Shuda from Ghost Blog Writers.
Quick and to the point. If the person is virtually meeting you for the first time, likely true, they can now know your name and quickly research about your company and how you’re working with them.
Then you can state your problem.
I’m having an issue logging into the software. I keep getting an error.
No need for a lot of small talk. Get right to the point of what the main issue is.
3. Describe The Problem, But Not In Too Much Detail
But be careful not to provide too much detail right away. The longer the email the less likely the person is to read it fully and understand what the issue is.
If they need more details they will ask you specific questions and that will likely lead to faster resolutions.
Often when people call into customer service lines in the B2C world the customer will ramble on about their issue and the operator will have to cut them off to get the information they need to fix the issue.
The same occurs in B2B and via email.
4. End With One Question
In the same vein, you want to keep your questions to a minimum. In other words, one question. If possible, as the last line in the email before your name in the signature.
Something like this:
Are you able to help?
Is that enough information?
How long might this take to resolve?
If you get beyond one question, I’ve found that the likelihood of all the questions being answered gets lower and lower. I like to keep it to one question per email. It seems ridiculous, but even two questions per email seems to throw things off.
5. Followup
As clients, we obviously like issues to be resolved as fast as possible. But so do vendors. The issue is that “as fast as possible” can mean different things to different people.
You might expect that it’s reasonable to have the issue resolved in an hour. The vendor may see it as a day.
The odds are good that your expectations are shorter than the vendor’s. If you feel it’s getting to be too long before you hear back, reach out with a followup email.
Keep it kind. Ask them one more question. Something like:
I just wanted to make sure you received my email and how long it might take to resolve the issue?
Usually after a followup you’ll get a little info that gives you an idea of the scope of the issue and how they’re working on it. Sometimes a timeline for fixing although that’s not always known.
Conclusion
Kindness and brevity are important with customer support emails. Be as concise as possible. Try to get it to the right person as soon as possible. This helps to make the process as efficient as possible, which is what you and the vendor are both looking for.