Tag: email marketing

Customer disservice

Fabrizio1 Comment

We are all lazy as customers, and somehow we forget this basic fact when we change our dress and become business people.

Hi Generic User

Thank you for contacting Support.

We appreciate your time and effort invested in contacting us.

It is unfortunate that you are facing issue with your product. Need not to worry we will surely try our best to resolve this issue.

Please provide us with the below information so that we could help you more appropriately regarding your issue:

  1. Was there any liquid/physical damage to the product?
  2. Have you ever dropped your product?
  3. Are facing issue from the day 1 of purchasing the product?

We really apologize for the inconvenience that this has caused. Please perform a factory reset on your product, please see below on how to perform it.

Please provide us clear pictures of your product and the video of the issue.

Please feel free to reach out to us if still issue persists.

Best Regards,

I have three problems with this way of making a connection with a customer.

Number 1, you have my name, you can use it. I have purchased from you, I am getting in touch about a specific order, you have all the details about my life as a customer (and perhaps some more). It’s quite pointless that the next time I scroll through my Facebook timeline I will see an offer from you “JUST FOR ME!!!”, if you are not personal when you can be.

Number 2, can I ask how many people tell you they have spilled liquid on their product, damaged it, or dropped it? And if they are honest and they do, what is your answer? Are you telling them that it is their fault the product does not work (and fail their honesty, losing them for good), or are you going to pretend nothing happened and still replace the product (and then why the question in the first place)?

Number 3, please do not make it feel as if by having an issue with your product I am being hired for a second job. Be sure that the tasks you ask me to perform are related to my request (I am not sure how useful taking a video can be for sound not coming from earphones) and are few.

I got this answer after only 14 minutes from my request of assistance. I imagine first response time has been dealt with. What about the rest?

A couple of alternatives.

Hi Fabrizio, thanks for reaching out.

I am sorry you can’t hear music coming from your headphones, when did this start? Also, can I ask you to perform a factory reset on them? We found this is helpful in some cases. To do this, follow the instructions at the end of this message.

If this does not help, we’ll arrange a replacement, as I see it’s been just two months from your purchase. We are proud of the quality of our products, but sometimes things do not go as planned. I apologise for this.

Be in touch soon!

Or

Hi Fabrizio, thanks for being in touch.

I am sorry you can’t hear music coming from your headphones. You bought them two months ago, and this should not happen.

I am not in a position to offer a replacement, unfortunately. We are striving to keep the cost of our products the lowest on the market, and this is why we are able to offer only 40 days of guarantee on earphones. We have found that customers, sometimes, are not as careful as you shared you’ve been, and by increasing the guarantee period, we might actually end up losing money. I am genuinely sorry for that.

What I can do, if you agree, is transfer a €10 credit on your account to use with your next purchase. No strings attached, it is valid forever, use it when you want it, and on whichever product you might be interested into.

I understand this is not the solution you were seeking, and I will appreciate if you would get back to me with an answer, so that I can proceed with crediting the money on your account.

Looking forward to hearing from you!

Sales emails

FabrizioLeave a comment

Sales emails are bad more often than they are not. Really bad. I remember a sales rep reaching out to me on LinkedIn while I was unemployed, telling me how great I was, how much he appreciated my work and how the tool he was selling could have improved the performance of my company.

Yet sometimes, sales emails are kind of ok. I got one today that went something like this.

Fabrizio: 
 
I am Vice President of Sales at *Whatever Company* handling business development for the company and their entire portfolio of assets.  I was hoping you would have some time to take a call or a meeting.  We have worked with many growth companies over the years building effective campaigns that deliver tremendous results.  I am confident we can do the same for *your Company*. 
 
*Whatever Company* is one of the world’s largest outdoor advertising companies with more than xxx displays reaching more than half a billion people in more than xx countries on x continents each month.  In the U.S., *Whatever Company* operates in xx of the top xx U.S. markets and is the leading outdoor advertising company with the fastest-growing digital outdoor network now surpassing xxx displays. 
  
*Whatever Company* has successfully developed and maintained the most comprehensive network of major airports in North America and has over xxx airports worldwide.  We market an effective combination of both international hub airports and targeted local O&D airports which creates opportunities for potential national or regional campaigns of all size. 
 
Would you happen to have some time to do a conference call or have a meeting in the next couple of weeks?  
 
Thanks in advance!

No grammar mistakes, the name of my company is correct, there are a couple of nice personalisations here and there, and all in all the text explains what they have to offer.

And still, they will never get an answer.

It is very easy to tell a lot about what you do, your coverage, your numbers, how you’ve helped this and that. But suppose you are in a room with somebody who only talks about themselves. Is that pleasant? Are you likely to meet them again? Would you do business with them? Of course not. Nonetheless we keep thinking that telling our story will simply awe everybody.

Few ways to avoid this trap.

Connect with me on a personal level. Tell me how much you appreciated the latest story I shared on LinkedIn, or how you see from my recent posts that our company is hiring and growing even further, or how you were impressed to find that we made it to the *Whatever Analyst* report also last year.

Mention ONE business challenge that I have, and how you can fix it. You say you have worked with many growth companies, so tell me about the common pains, the difficulties in affirming your brand when every other competitor has ten times your marketing budget, the impact of your work on metrics a growth company cares about.

Show me that you can deliver. You must have a customer success story, some narrative I can relate to more directly, a difference you’ve made for a company our size and in our stage. Tell me how it did work out, and how happy they were after they have made the investment.

It is a lot less easier, and perhaps not as scalable as the traditional approach. And you’ll find your work has greater purpose, is more exciting, and can actually change people and their businesses.

A beautiful note

Fabrizio1 Comment

The way you treat people that gravitate around your business is as important as the way you treat people that are at the core of it.

This below costs nothing, is caring and generous. It is beautiful, and tells a lot about how this company does work.