Top tips for turning emails into sales

Responding professionally to messages from customers can be an all-important deciding factor in winning or retaining business.

On the one hand, the email channel affords an opportunity to reach customers quickly and cheaply, but an email message from a customer may be easily missed - drowned out by spam or not taken as seriously as a formal letter.

Recent research by a web hosting firm¹ indicates that some customers are being disappointed by poor email responses. During the past year, 27 per cent of firms surveyed admitted to regularly deleting genuine customer emails as a result of mistaking them for spam.

At the same time a survey of consumer attitudes to business email² underlines the benefits of a more professional approach: 54 per cent of consumers believe that they would be likely to spend more with a business if it showed it was timely and professional at responding to their emails.

Here are some processes you can put in place to ensure every customer email is given the appropriate attention.

Lost or missing email

The biggest bugbear for customers surveyed (77 per cent) was sending an email and receiving no response. To ensure your customer email responses are handled efficiently you could:

• set a company policy which states the maximum time for an email response
• not prioritise written letters over emails
• use email response forms from websites to generate emails - these can be more easily identified by staff and may be populated to generate the right amount of information to ensure a professional response: eg, title (Mr/Mrs etc); alternative contact information such as a telephone or mobile number and text box for enquiries
• put in processes to ensure that customer emails are resolved and that all email correspondence with customers is archived

Speed of response

Almost as many customers surveyed (61 per cent) dislike automated email responses which do not address questions as those who complained of delayed responses (63 per cent). Aim for a personalised response as soon as possible. For the mobile self-employed invest in a smart phone to respond when offsite to prevent losing an opportunity to a competitor.

If you see a pattern of typical email queries it's useful to have templates made up for frequently-used responses to save time - but always remember to personalise and answer every aspect of the customer's questions carefully.

An automated response which instantly acknowledges receipt of the email and a promise to get back within a time-frame builds confidence and patience of customers.

Fullness of response

In all email communication, it is advisable to be as concise and to the point as possible, but take care to answer all questions raised and if possible pre-empt further questions.

Be aware that not all customers have broadband and unlimited downloads, and many have anti-spam filters or antivirus software that may block attachments. It is best therefore to avoid use of attachments unless necessary or requested. Be prepared to provide full text answers, telephone contacts or suggest useful weblinks to information pages instead. If you are mailing a brochure or forms, ensure this is done as quickly as possible.

It is interesting to note however that a growing number of broadband consumers expect to be provided with documents, quotations or order forms in a digital format. 45 per cent of all shoppers now expect all businesses - irrespective of size, to be capable of emailing this type of information.

General email usage tips

• The essential requirements for all effective professional business emails are the same as for all other forms of written communications: correct spelling, grammar and punctuation and the use of proper structure and layout.
• Don't leave out the message thread: use "reply" not "new message". It will save your recipient time finding out the related sent email.
• Always use email disclaimers: these protect your company against abuse by staff and others.   

¹ Source: Fasthosts Internet 'Business Email Attitudes' study of 1495 UK small companies with a website surveyed in April 2010 via electronic feedback form

² OpinionMatters survey of 1428 UK adults in March 2010 via electronic feedback form

Article copyright Businesslink, original source here.