{"id":5716,"date":"2016-01-26T00:00:00","date_gmt":"2016-01-26T00:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.litmus.com\/blog\/how-support-teams-can-use-email-to-engage-customers\/"},"modified":"2020-04-21T20:56:01","modified_gmt":"2020-04-21T20:56:01","slug":"how-support-teams-can-use-email-to-engage-customers","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.litmus.com\/blog\/how-support-teams-can-use-email-to-engage-customers","title":{"rendered":"How Support Teams Can Use Email to Engage Customers"},"content":{"rendered":"
Support emails…we know, we know, they don\u2019t sound very glamorous. Using email beyond the standard promotional or transactional function doesn\u2019t always garner a lot of attention. However, often overlooked support emails are one of the best ways to build relationships and engage your customers.<\/p>\n
The benefits of using email for support<\/h2>\n
While we also offer phone, live chat, and Twitter support here at Litmus, email is what works best for us. Yes, we really love email!<\/p>\n
When it comes to supporting issues within the app, we find it\u2019s the quickest way to gather all of the necessary and relevant information, document the issue, and escalate it to our development team.<\/p>\n
Outside of the typical issue and bug reports, we also use support emails to build relationships with our customers, facilitate interactions, gain product suggestions, and build brand personality. It\u2019s also an opportunity to showcase features to our users that they may not have been aware of.<\/p>\n
For those reasons and more, we recently transitioned our Customer Support team into our Customer Success team. We\u2019re more than support\u2014and email plays a huge role in making that clear to our customers. Here\u2019s how:<\/p>\n
Day-to-day support interactions<\/h2>\n
Use a consistent voice and style<\/h3>\n
Numerous members of the Litmus team are customer-facing, so having a cohesive style and voice is crucial. The tone of the Litmus voice is casual because we want you to feel like you\u2019re talking to a friend, not a robot.<\/p>\n
Keep it timely<\/h3>\n
Nobody likes receiving an automated response with a ticket number, followed by a stiff, impersonal response weeks later. We answer 86% of all customer emails within 6 hours. We want our customers to know that if something is bugging them, it\u2019s on our minds, too!<\/p>\n
Use plain text emails<\/h3>\n
In addition to making sure all of our emails have a \u201cLitmusy\u201d voice, the design of our daily emails is consistent as well. There\u2019s nothing fancy to them. In fact, they\u2019re not designed at all. We use plain text to ensure that our emails will render across all platforms. This makes us and our message accessible to our customers.<\/p>\n
Be helpful, very helpful<\/h3>\n
Day-to-day support emails also give you an opportunity to introduce your users to all the tools and benefits that your product provides. For example, while reviewing a customer\u2019s email, you may notice that they aren\u2019t using all of the features available in their account. This is the perfect opportunity to link them to a quick tutorial, or even give them temporary access to a feature that requires an upgrade. Every interaction by email is an opportunity to educate your users, and make them aware of tools they may not be utilizing.<\/p>\n
Gain feedback and product ideas<\/h3>\n
Litmus is not just a product, it\u2019s a team of awesome people, too. We\u2019re approachable, resourceful, and helpful\u2014and we\u2019re able to show that via email. The more we convey that to our customers, the more comfortable they are coming to us with their feedback, ideas, and issues.<\/p>\n
Every support email gives us the opportunity to interact with our customers and gain their invaluable feedback.<\/p>\n
Your customers are your best resource, and for this reason the support team can really help guide product development. Outside of helping our team to identify issues and bugs, users pass along a variety of feedback every day that motivates us to improve our customer experience.<\/p>\n
Specific to Litmus, this includes notifying us of changes in the email marketing industry. Users help us track down changes in email clients as soon as they happen, and rendering issues when a new version is released.<\/p>\n
![\"email1-02\"](\"https:\/\/www.litmus.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/04\/email1-02.png\")
<\/figure>\n![\"email2-02\"](\"https:\/\/www.litmus.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/04\/email2-02.png\")
<\/figure>\n