Email Response Fails To Meet Expectations

Gwynne Young
Managing Editor, CustomerThink
Member

Posted 10-Aug-2004 09:37 AM
Customer service email response performance continues to fail to meet consumer expectations, according to JupiterResearch.

JupiterResearch's report "JupiterResearch Metrics: Customer Relationship Management, June 2004," found that, while a greater number of companies responded to customer service email inquiries within six hours than during the same time period in 2003, the number of companies that failed to respond at all hit the highest levels in recent years (39 percent).

Additionally, the number of companies that responded to email inquiries within 24 hours dropped 11 percent year over year, indicating that more companies are failing to meet even the longer end of consumer response expectations. JupiterResearch data show that 89 percent of consumers state that they expect a response to email inquiries somewhere within the 24 hour time period.

Ultimately, poor customer service email response performance raises the total costs of customer service and puts customer relationships at risk. In the absence of optimized email response operations, companies are advised to push customer to live support channels for immediate resolution.

According to Zachary McGeary, Research Associate at JupiterResearch and author of the report, "The focus among companies to respond to customer service email inquiries within six hours appears to handicap their ability to respond to inquiries within 24 hours, or even at all. Companies should revise their email response time targets to more accurately reflect the response time expectations of their customers."

Based on my own experience in emailing web firms, this doesn't surprise me. I wish the news were better, though. Does this surprise you? How can companies better manage their email communications?

And are you happy with the communication you do get? In my case, sometimes the replies are so lame, I'd almost have preferred not to get them at all.

crugirl
Member

Posted 04-Sep-2004 07:23 AM
hello Smile, i am new here. I work in a
telecommunications company as customer relation officer.
I find the topic that Gwynne wrote is very interesting. I was wondering is there anyway that i can find the resources or ideas to improve the quality of email responds so that the customers are happy with the replies that is given to them. Thank you.

Raffy
Member

Posted 10-Sep-2004 06:24 AM
Putting yourself in the customer's shoes, you'd definitely want options or alternatives to communicate with an organization. Not everyone think & respond the same.

Aside from setting up an automated email reponse system telling the customer that you've received their email, include other messaging and communication options such as a toll free number, voicemail, SMS, chat, callbacks and the like. A lot of CRM and non-CRM solutions like call center suites and ASPs offer most, if not all, of unified messaging services. I've recommended GoldMine or ACT to a lot of my independent business friends (e.g. real estate brokers, direct sales people) because of simplicity and price. I've also recommended the use of call center ASP service from Telcos and corporations (e.g. Vonage, GTCTI) to manage telecommunications without the need to setup a server room in your bedroom.

Lastly, a person (customer) would always like to communicate with another person, and treated much like a VIP. Whether you have sophisticated solutions or simple ones, the best response is always personal—and quick. For me, 24 hour leadtime for responding is already too long.

Raffy Pekson II
BC, Canada

Leslie
Member

Posted 17-Sep-2004 07:37 AM
To respond to crugirl's request for resources to help improve the quality of e-mail responses to customers, I'd like to suggest a book: Clear, Correct, Concise E-Mail: A Writing Workbook for Customer Service Agents. (I am the co-author of this workbook ...) The hands-on practice this workbook provides will help agents write e-mails customers are happy to receive.

Originally posted by crugirl:
hello Smile, i am new here. I work in a
telecommunications company as customer relation officer.
I find the topic that Gwynne wrote is very interesting. I was wondering is there anyway that i can find the resources or ideas to improve the quality of email responds so that the customers are happy with the replies that is given to them. Thank you.