Write Great Customer Service Emails: Best Practices + Templates (2023)

We've all had good and bad customer service experiences at one point or another, whether it's via email, social media,live chat, phone call or in person. These instances stay with us and shape our impression of the brand or company with which we interact. When these experiences turn sour, there's a good chance we'll spread the word about what any business would fear.

​Survey on awe in 2020has revealed that a whopping 96% of customers are ready to switch brands and leave because of poor customer service. These numbers just show that there is a lot of room to improve your customer experience, especially through clear and effective communication.

Despite the growing popularity of social media channels and live chat likecustomer service tools, you might be surprised to learn that many customer interactions still happen via email. Some might say that email is too formal or impersonal to provide the kind of service customers expect. But when emails are well thought out and crafted to be empathetic, polite and considerate, there's very little room for things to go wrong.

Today, many customer service-focused activities take place via email, making it the mainstay of support interactions. These tasks include troubleshooting, responding to customer feedback, offering product installation guidance and assistance,troubleshooting, and much more.

Good customer service emails can make or break your customers' experience.perception of your brand. But do your customer service reps know the importance of writing the perfect support email? Poorly written emails, messy formatting and lackluster content are some of the top reasons why customer support teams fail to engage with their customers.

But good email etiquette can help add value to your brand. They are highly effective inbuild customer trust and loyalty.

But how do you write persuasive customer service emails? In this post, we give you tips, tricks and some templates to get you started.

Table of Contents

• 10 Best Practices for Writing Effective Customer Support Emails
• closing note

10 Best Practices for Writing Effective Customer Support Emails

Here are some best practices and customer service email templates to help you master the art of writing better customer emails:

1.be human

There's nothing customers hate more than feeling like they're talking to a robot. While AI chatbots have been all the rage, an in-depth studyexaminationfrom nearly 24,000 customers in 12 countries, including the US and UK, suggests that 79% of customers want a human option for customer service.

Even though customer service automation is on the rise, every email needs to sound like it's coming from a human with a personal touch. But that is not always the case. The moment we get ready to write emails, our language changes. We become more formal by including complex sentence structures and jargon in our writing. We end up writing robotic-sounding emails like the following:

"Hello,

We have just received your request. We will contact you within 2 business days. For the record, your support ticket number is ABC235. Please present it for all future correspondence.

so,

Supportteamet.”

An email like this is simply not enough. You want your customer service emails to sound personal, friendly and empathetic – as if you are communicating with them in person. Remember that when a customer approaches you, they are not only trying to solve their problem, but also to build a stronger relationship as you go.

Here are some tips to keep in mind to make your emails sound more personal:

• Use the customer's name – it shows that you see them as real people with real problems.
• Use your name, not just the company name. It makes you look more human.
• Include an emoji here and there, create warmth and reassure your customer.
• Feel free to add your picture to the signature. This is a great way to build trust with your users. If you are not ready for that, you candraw your signatureand add it to your email.

Now take a look at an improved version of the same email. Do you feel the difference?

2. Solutions first, resources later

There are many times when customer issues can be resolved without input from you, directing them to the self-help videos or documents you've created. Videos are an easy way to help your users with step-by-step instructions. step guides Aonline video editorcould be a useful solution for making training, orientation or informational videos

But what do you do when a customer has asked for your help with something? Do you immediately direct them to your FAQ page? It would be rude to chase them away when they have come to you for answers.

For example, suppose a customer has a query aboutautomatic e-mail allocationand he has communicated with you and you send him a reply that says something like this:

“You can automatically assign emails to your team based on some rules you set up. Here's the breakdown of what you can do with this feature."

If I were the customer, I would not want to receive such a response from a trusted brand. This is poor customer service to say the least. When a customer comes to you, the last thing you want to do is annoy them, turn them away or redirect them to aknowledge base.

No doubt they can help themselves, but if they've come to you, an email response like the one listed below is the way to go.

Note that the first thing you have done is to answer them. From there, he talks a bit about the features and then guides them to the resource page for more details.

3. Avoid imperatives: be positive with your writing

If you're not sure what imperatives are, they're words that sound like instructions or commands like "do this" or "do that." Many customer service emails sound that way when your customer service representatives come across as rude and preachy.

In customer service, it's important to be polite and positive in your writing and not sound preachy or rude.

Here's where you can go wrong:

"Go to the control panel and click on the gear icon that you see on the top right"

Here's a better way to say it:

"Can you go to the dashboard and click on the gear icon that you see in the top right corner?"

Can you see the difference? The second response is more polite and friendly, putting the reader at ease.

In addition to imperatives, here are some negative phrases to avoid:

• "You confirm that"
• "You must"
• "should"

These words will definitely make your customers uncomfortable.

On the other hand, you can use the following phrases in your emails to give your message a positive tone:

• "Would You Like It"
• “May we suggest”
• "We can help you with (homework) if you could send us (the information)."

When you start using positive and encouraging words, you will start to see a difference in the way customers react to you. Even if you were to deliver something unpleasant, they will tend to overlook it and give you another chance to prove yourself and serve them better. To avoid the risk of being unprofessional towards your customers, you can always take help fromtest tigreprofessionals who will provide you with a range of proven courtesy advice.

4.keep it simple

Many times customer support emails look like instruction manuals. This does not make life easy for your customers who are looking for quick and easy steps to solve their problems.

Before you start writing an email to a customer, take a moment to think about whether it will help you in any way.

Ask yourself some questions like:

• Does the client have to follow a specific order?

If so, write the email in that order. Use bullet points or number the steps to make reading easier. When you write your answer in a long paragraph, you don't help their case.

• Does the customer need to check or do something before getting to the root of the problem?

It is important to go through all the pre-checks before diving into the solution. It could be something as small as checking that they have the right browser, but you still want to start with that.

Take a look at the following sample email:

• Are there multiple ways to start solving a problem?

In that case, you might want to start with the easier steps first. If the first task the client has to complete is complex, there is a good chance he will put it off.

5. Leave no room for confusion

One of the most common phrases you'll see in a customer service email is:"We will contact you as soon as we can". This is as vague as it gets. Do not you think?

The customer needs help and expects a quick response. When you say "as soon as we can," the reader may begin to wonder if you have a solution to offer in the first place. Even if you were to respond and solve their problem a few hours later, it will not serve you well to keep the customer waiting.

In customer service, it is important to createpositive experiences for your customers. Every message should resonate with confidence and positivity. You want your customers to know they are in good hands. So let them know you have a plan and a solution to offer.

Get back to the customer with a clear timeframe for when they can expect a response.

Something along these lines:

If you still cannot meet that schedule, it is best to notify the customer in advance. Let them know you're working on it and when they can expect a response from you.

Make sure your response times are fast. Long waiting times can also annoy your customers. according to aexamination, companies reported losing 75% of their customers due to long wait times.

If you don't have a solution within that time frame, contact the customer and let them know you're working on it and when they can expect a solution.

6. Make it easy to read

You may have noticed that many customer emails have more than one question. When you send your answer in a long paragraph, you don't make it easy for them. It can get overwhelming and your customers might skip reading. The best way to do this is to break your answer into clear sections.

Use bold formatting to create subheadings, then organize your response under each statement as shown in the template below.

You can also use italics if you want to emphasize a point. As the example below:

Doesn't the above email look well structured and easy to follow?

7. Know when to sell more

It is much easier to sell to an existing customer than to a new customer. According tobook, marketing metrics, the chances of converting an existing customer are 60-70%, however, the chances of converting a new prospect into a customer are only 5-20%. These numbers say it all. People respond best to brands and companies that they know.

With that in mind, you don't want to miss an opportunity to nudge customers toward a sale in your customer support emails, but you have to tread carefully.

Adding a link to a product page a few lines into your customer service email will end up distracting the customer. They will be asked to click on the link and ignore the email intended to solve their problem.

In customer service, you get the customers' attention to solve the problem first. Once you've told them everything they need to know and do, it's okay to share links to yoursmarketing videos. Remember these golden rules:

• Never try to increase sales without solving a customer problem
• Never try to upsell an angry customer, it won't work well for you

8.Answer all customer questions

In most cases, all a customer is looking for in an email are quick ways to solve their problem. So what you need to do is to be considerate, value your time, offer clear solutions and last but not least, answer all your questions at once.

If for any reason you need more time, let your customer know. Don't leave them in the dark or give them the feeling that you didn't read their email properly.

9. Follow up proactively

Good customer service doesn't end with the first email you send. It also includesfollow. Unless the customer has indicated they don't want to hear from you again, send a follow-up email to see if they've been able to resolve the issue or if they have any further questions for you. .

10. Apologize when necessary

The first step to solving a problem is to create onePardon. If a customer has approached your team and is upset or angry about something, listen to them and apologize if it was your fault.

Take ownership, address the issue in your email, and work towards a possible solution.

• "I totally understand"
• "You're right"
• "I'm sorry you're facing this"
• "I understand where you're coming from"
• “Thank you for getting in touch”

These few phrases can be helpful with angry or disgruntled customers.

closing note

In customer service, a lot of customer interactions happen via email. Perfecting the art of email writing can put you on the right track to improving your brand image, improvingcustomer satisfactionand convert new leads into loyal customers.

By following the best practices we've presented here, your customer service team will be better equipped to craft meaningful and effective emails that bring you satisfied customers.

INcustomer service solutionas Hiver can help you create engaging customer service emails to delight your users. Its amazing features likeemail templates,live chat,customer contacts,shared drafts, yautomationIt allows you to solve customer problems faster than you think, improve the quality of your customer service emails and build stronger customer relationships.

start your journeywith Hiver today and offers excellent customer service directly from Gmail.

Resources you will love:

• 9 essential thingscustomer service skills+ How to develop them
• customer service testto help identify the best customer service agents
• El MailChimpStyle guidefor grammar and mechanics
• insteadpostabout phrases to avoid in support emails
• provide supportinfographicabout positive support phrases
• E-mailsentenceswhich always gives you the desired answer