Nothing is more valuable than sending a quick response to a customer in trouble. Sending a quick reply has many advantages.
A customer receiving an instant response gets satisfied by your service. If they have to make a decision regarding choosing a product or service, they can decide faster. If they are facing an issue and support is provided to them quickly, they will praise the company’s after-sales customer service. In addition, a fast response rate on email means that your company’s name remains fresh in the minds of the users.
Let’s discuss the ways in which email response rate can be improved.
Set up automated email responses to generic questions
So, for instance if a potential customer asks how long will the product delivery take, they can be sent a standard reply related to delivery times. While creating the automated response, customize the email message with the details of the customer.
In this case, the tracking number of the order should be included in the email. Similarly, adding the address of the customer In the email will improve user satisfaction.
Use emailing tools that work using artificial intelligence
Artificially intelligent tools make use of natural language processing to do a sentiment analysis. By reading the content of the email the tool can classify the tone of the customer. If the sender is unsatisfied they can be sent a relevant response. For example, if the customer sends an email saying poor service then they can be sent an apologetic response or maybe a free gift.
Customer service representatives can usually take a lot of time in thinking of the right response especially if the customer is in a bad mood. On the other hand, AI tools can send an immediate response by searching for the most appropriate response from the database.
In addition to analyzing the intent of the message, emails can be categorized based on their content and subject line. By managing email with AI, automatic tagging can be done. This way it gets easier to sort them and they can be forwarded to the relevant departments.
Tools help in creating workflows. For instance, a workflow can be routing emails according to subject types. Each customer service representative can be assigned on the particular email subject. However, this poses a threat of monotonous work for the employees.
Make the responsibility of each team member clear
Assign emails to designated team members. There shouldn’t be any confusion as to who’s answering the emails. Emails are left unanswered when team members think that someone else might be responding to a customer email.
For ongoing customer support, hire people in different timezones. A representative should be assigned to answer your query at all times. To respond faster, representatives should use pre-built templates and modify them as needed.
Hire people who are dedicated to providing support through email. If the representative is responsible for providing support through calls and emails, then their attention will be diverted. If you’re not using automated tools, then a fast response rate is possible if a team member focuses on email.
Use a spelling-checker tool
While sending out professional emails, it’s important to use the correct grammar and spellings. Even if the language skills of representatives are exceptional, humans make errors. Having an extension of a grammar tool will ensure that there are no grammatical mistakes. The email is ready to be sent in a shorter time with the assistance of a tool.
You don’t want to be making mistakes such as writing “shiping” instead of “shipping” or “ordr” instead of “order”. In other words, the tool helps in sending fast email responses while ensuring the tone and language is consistent and professional.
Hire people with great analytical skills
Customers send emails of all sizes. Customer support representatives might not have time to go through long emails. Quick reading or skimming through is a valuable skill.
A fast response rate is dependent on how efficiently the customer support representative analyzes the problem and sends a reply. Of course, the speed of reply is also dependent on how quickly the representative can type. The representative will become an expert as he/she gains more experience in the job.
A rule of thumb is not to hand over the entire job of responding to emails to a new-hire. The beginner is likely to have a lot of questions. Confirming answers from managers or other team members will take up time, which in turn slows down the response rate. A beginner should always be teamed up with a senior customer representative.
Create an extensive knowledge-base
It is unlikely that the customer service representative remembers solutions to all queries by heart – especially, if he/she is a part of a technical company. Knowledge base articles should be readily accessible.
The team creating articles and documentation need to come up with detailed names. An example of such a naming convention is, “shipping policy – local clients – updated version”.
Ideally, there should be a search bar where keywords can be searched. Customer representatives can instantly search for the most relevant article which contains the solution for the customer’s query.
Response Rate Time Importance in SEO link building
For the SEO team that’s reaching out to guest posting websites, a quick response can greatly improve their link building efforts. A fast response rate means:
• The process of getting links is faster – results in quicker collaboration with the content team to draft an article and to get it published.
• If the webmaster is not interested to collaborate, it is better to be rejected rather than being ghosted.
A quick response rate keeps the link builders motivated to reach out to more people.
Imagine how disheartening it will be if you spend time creating a list of prospects, drafting customized emails for each one of them and still not getting a response from any of them.
Sending targeted content helps in improving SEO efforts in the following way:
1. A customer sends you an email inquiring about a particular product or service.
2. You respond to them by sending a relevant blog or help desk article from the website.
3. Your website gets an increase in traffic (since the content is targeted, the user is likely to stay on the web page for a longer time and the bounce rate is low).
4. Google thinks the webpage matches the user intent and moves the webpage higher up on the search results pages.
How do emails help with SEO
This article discussed how to send quick responses via emails. The question is, does that impact SEO in any way? Let’s divide the answer into two categories.
Sending out emails to potential customers
Email marketing is a very important customer acquisition channel. If someone has not heard of your company or if they have forgotten about your company’s name they can immediately look you up on search engines.
Read: How can email marketing help boost your SEO results using video
If your website or application has been performing well in regards to SEO then your brand will show up on top in the results. This way the traffic on your website or application will increase and directly result in an increased conversion rate. It’s important to remember that SEO is not a standalone service but it helps drive traffic through other channels as well.
Sending out emails to existing customers
As a company, you have the email addresses of existing customers. If someone has signed up for your newsletter, they can be sent regular updates about discounts, special promotions, informative content, new products or services.
Targeted traffic has a greater likelihood of converting as well.
If an existing customer sends you a specific problem, they can be sent links to content on the website that’s related to their issue.
For large companies, newsletters can also be categorized into different topics. Potential and existing customers can sign up for niche topics that they’re interested in. This way, your brand website will start getting useful traffic that will help in the SEO efforts.
The goal of SEO is to create a service that meets the needs of the customers. Even though user satisfaction is not directly linked to SEO, a top-notch customer service will result in word–of-mouth marketing. People will search for your brand name and stay longer on the webpage, which is a win in itself.