Email Strategies, Redefining the Basics - Electronic Customer Relations Management
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If you have someone who is really good at customer service, you'd better hold them and never let them go. Some people (like me) have to learn customer service the hard way (continuous feedback, win some lose some). Some individuals are just gifted in service, and email services is the only way that CRM can go on. The most important thing is "response time," the lag between the time the customer makes a complaint and the time you fix his/her problem. Now imagine all the emails and questions you will have to ask and answer in between. Frankly if I had something about myself I could repair overnight, it would be my customer relations skills specifically relating to response time (production and marketing are pretty much what I specialize in).
Your messaging team are probably great with sales copy and content, and think the creative is "cool," but what do they do when a complaint comes in? Complaints are what service is all about. Various web sites have different ways to handle complaints; some use forums, others use a system of tickets and FAQs, with email as a last resort. The basic beginner's way is "send email to webmaster@whodunit.com."
Most of the time, your marketing and your customer relations may be separate teams with different objectives. Customer service should have knowledge of the marketing operations and vice versa. It's not only that customer relations should continually communicate with service providers and marketers; a breakdown in this communication could have marketing making promises production cannot meet, now leaving customer relations with an insurmountable problem.
This is especially the case with service companies (SEO especially). The marketers promise top rankings, but the providers can't guarantee anything (much less with sand box rankings). So the customer gets frustrated and starts lodging complaints; customer relations relays the complaints while trying to placate the customer with "we are working on it." Service providers immediately tell their in house customer relations "forget it, we can't meet those demands or those deadlines."
This puts customer relations in a fix, because they cannot tell the customer (with whom they are communicating via email) the truth, which is "sorry, no can do." The customer is probably sending emails daily (especially if an initial deposit has been made). Customer relations asks management what to do, and management either offers a refund or says "handle it." If customer relations can go the refund route, the CR representative breathes a sign of relief; s/he starts the email process. If they're told simply to "handle it," customer relations is likely to stop answering customers' emails (even if s/he's a CRM genius)
If you have ever had issues with service, this is probably what went on behind the scenes (it has happened several times in organizations I have worked with and even with design teams I have managed). the two major causes of this phenomenon are unrealistic customer expectations and/or poor service. By this I mean that the service provider can do it but is taking his/her sweet time to answer. Electronic customer relations management is very important, now more than ever.
You have to plan your entire email strategy while you pay attention to just a few indices. This allows you to benchmark properly and not get bogged down by too many minute details.
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