Do You Ignore Customer Emails?
Boy, there were lots of juicy morsels waiting for me in my feed reader this morning. But in the end, it was a tidbit from MarketingVox that stood out from all the others.
The headline: Companies Ignore Half of Customer Emails
A recent customer service study by Hornstein Associates, a Connecticut-based marketing firm, found that only half of the companies studied bothered to respond to customer emails at all—which is down from the 86 percent high from five years ago. Furthermore, only 33 percent of top firms responded to customer emails within a 24-hour period. This is down from a whopping 63 percent in 2002.
The survey studied the email response rate of 49 top firms, including Microsoft, Toyota, Apple, Starbucks and Wal-Mart, which were selected from Fortune's list of most admired companies.
Well, you might be thinking, these are enormous companies. Of course they can't respond to every customer email.
Can't they? Scott Hornstein of Hornstein Associates disagrees:
I think we've got plenty of infrastructure, we've got more technology than we know what to do with. The problem is there isn't a strategy in place that says it's important to treat the customer well. We keep recreating the wheel, bringing new customers in to take the place of those who've had bad experiences and leave.
Robin Ritchie, a business professor at the University of Western Ontario, said the survey results were disappointing but not surprising. While good companies will openly solicit and respond to feedback (the good and the bad), Ritchie said most firms put their money towards into things like advertising instead of customer service support.
"It's the practical reality of the short-term focus of business," said Ritchie.
Of course, what these companies seem to be forgetting is that customer service needs to be built into long-term branding efforts.
InsureMe isn't a company of grandiose proportions. We have roughly 70 employees. But we understand the importance of hearing and validating our customers' emails. Leave your phone number and we'll probably give you a call as well. Why?
- It's the right thing to do.
- It's one of the easiest ways to squelch the flames of a ticked off customer. (Especially when you follow up with a phone call.)
- We genuinely care about giving our customers—agents, affiliates and insurance shoppers—the best possible experience.
Don't have time to answer incoming emails yourself? Throw some money at the problem—hire someone respond to customer emails. Or, create an alternate email account for customer emails and make it a point to read and reply to those emails at the end of each business day.
[Related posts]:
What Does Your Email Font Say about You?
7 Tips for Email Marketing Campaigns
7 Surefire Tips to Avoid Flaming
