Emails to Customer Service and Customers - Comments please

B

biboy2012

Here are the mails I composed (one for our Customer Service, the other one for Customers):

E-mail #1

Dear Customer Service Team,

We would like to request for a list of customer's email addresses. We are currently conducting a customer survey for walk-in customer visit. We also wish to send said survey via email. We believe that we cannot understand the complete picture of customer perceptions based on negative feedback (complaints we received) alone. Therefore, this study aims to obtain a balanced picture of where company stands to facilitate improvements. Please note that this is only a pilot study, you (Customer Service Dept) will eventually own this program if proven effective.

E-mail #2

Dear valued Customer,

We are Quality Improvement Team of [Company ABC]. We invite you to answer few aspects of your experience with our Customer Service using the attached survey questionnaire. This study aims to improve the quality of our Customer Service and takes a couple of minutes to complete.

Thank you very much for your time

And here are the situations I am having so much difficulty composing the above mails. Please help me out with these!

1. How do you ask your Customer Service Department for a mailing list of customers despite the obvious fact they are the one being assessed here? I mean the set of questions are intended for them -customer service.

2. Since we are Quality Department, not Customer Service I wish to add/state in #2 mail that this email address of ours is intended for market research survey only. After this study, we discourage customers to send their complaints, inquiries or requests here. The appropriate email to send said concerns is still the Customer Service email. If I states that do you think it would do any good?

Any comments/suggestions before I send said emails would be greatly appreciated, thanks in advance!
 
Last edited by a moderator:

Ajit Basrur

Leader
Admin
Re: Customer Service and Customers..any help would be greatly appreciated

biboy2012,

I am not sure why you want to write this to the customer ? Is it that your organization is identifying a single point of contact with the customers ?
 
B

biboy2012

Re: Customer Service and Customers..any help would be greatly appreciated

biboy2012,

I am not sure why you want to write this to the customer ? Is it that your organization is identifying a single point of contact with the customers ?
We (Quality Department) were given the same responsibility and authority as the Customer Service Department for this puspose. However, we are independent of the customer service area/processes. We just want to verify if our customer service (Customer Service Department) is effective and meeting customer requirements, if not, see what the weakpoints are and actions to take based on customer survey result.
 

Wes Bucey

Prophet of Profit
Re: Customer Service and Customers..any help would be greatly appreciated

Here are the mails I composed (one for our Customer Service, the other one for Customers):

E-mail #1

Dear Customer Service Team,

We would like to request for a list of customer's email addresses. We are currently conducting a customer survey for walk-in customer visit. We also wish to send said survey via email. We believe that we cannot understand the complete picture of customer perceptions based on negative feedback (complaints we received) alone. Therefore, this study aims to obtain a balanced picture of where company stands to facilitate improvements. Please note that this is only a pilot study, you (Customer Service Dept) will eventually own this program if proven effective.

E-mail #2

Dear valued Customer,

We are Quality Improvement Team of [Company ABC]. We invite you to answer few aspects of your experience with our Customer Service using the attached survey questionnaire. This study aims to improve the quality of our Customer Service and takes a couple of minutes to complete.

Thank you very much for your time

And here are the situations I am having so much difficulty composing the above mails. Please help me out with these!

1. How do you ask your Customer Service Department for a mailing list of customers despite the obvious fact they are the one being assessed here? I mean the set of questions are intended for them -customer service.

2. Since we are Quality Department, not Customer Service I wish to add/state in #2 mail that this email address of ours is intended for market research survey only. After this study, we discourage customers to send their complaints, inquiries or requests here. The appropriate email to send said concerns is still the Customer Service email. If I states that do you think it would do any good?

Any comments/suggestions before I send said emails would be greatly appreciated, thanks in advance!

We (Quality Department) were given the same responsibility and authority as the Customer Service Department for this puspose. However, we are independent of the customer service area/processes. We just want to verify if our customer service (Customer Service Department) is effective and meeting customer requirements, if not, see what the weakpoints are and actions to take based on customer survey result.
Golly. This approach strikes me wrong for a number of reasons. If I'm a walk in customer, I might be very leery of giving up my privacy and inviting clutter to my email box just because I happened to drop in to your shop instead of the one down the street. After you send the one email, what do you propose to do with those email addresses?

What percentage of your walk ins do you think will give up their email address? Why? How will you control the manner (script and inflection) of the counter personnel requesting those email addresses? Do you suppose those that give up the address might be more biased for or against your company than a customer who just wants to buy and go?

Instead of sending individual emails, why not print an invitation to an on-site questionnaire on each sales receipt? Use a unique serial number identifier on each sales slip for the customer to enter on the web site. Offer a chance at a substantial prize (a selection of your products) for completing the questionnaire to increase percentage of participation.

Now, the biggest hurdle is how to construct the questionnaire to avoid biased or prejudicial questions. It is a lot easier to get it wrong than to get it right - consider getting some professional help to review the questions to remove bias.

Good luck!
 

somashekar

Leader
Admin
Re: Customer Service and Customers..any help would be greatly appreciated

We (Quality Department) were given the same responsibility and authority as the Customer Service Department for this puspose. However, we are independent of the customer service area/processes. We just want to verify if our customer service (Customer Service Department) is effective and meeting customer requirements, if not, see what the weakpoints are and actions to take based on customer survey result.
Everything said shows that the quality is external to the customer service. Why not build the quality internal in the customer service. You become a part of the customer service process (department), and help build quality in the customer services functions.
"Working with customer service functions seems to me far more practical and result oriented rather than working around customer service functions."
 
B

biboy2012

Re: Customer Service and Customers..any help would be greatly appreciated

Everything said shows that the quality is external to the customer service. Why not build the quality internal in the customer service. You become a part of the customer service process (department), and help build quality in the customer services functions.
"Working with customer service functions seems to me far more practical and result oriented rather than working around customer service functions."
We will not be working around with customer service functions forever. This is just a pilot test. We are establishing a Customer Feedback Program and eventually will be turned over to Customer Service Department the output of this study that includes:
1. Customer Feedback Procedure
2. Sets of survey questionnaires
3. Data Analysis. Convert raw data into graphics for easy interpretations.
 
B

biboy2012

Re: Customer Service and Customers..any help would be greatly appreciated

Golly. This approach strikes me wrong for a number of reasons. If I'm a walk in customer, I might be very leery of giving up my privacy and inviting clutter to my email box just because I happened to drop in to your shop instead of the one down the street. After you send the one email, what do you propose to do with those email addresses?

What percentage of your walk ins do you think will give up their email address? Why? How will you control the manner (script and inflection) of the counter personnel requesting those email addresses? Do you suppose those that give up the address might be more biased for or against your company than a customer who just wants to buy and go?

Instead of sending individual emails, why not print an invitation to an on-site questionnaire on each sales receipt? Use a unique serial number identifier on each sales slip for the customer to enter on the web site. Offer a chance at a substantial prize (a selection of your products) for completing the questionnaire to increase percentage of participation.

Now, the biggest hurdle is how to construct the questionnaire to avoid biased or prejudicial questions. It is a lot easier to get it wrong than to get it right - consider getting some professional help to review the questions to remove bias.

Good luck!
We will try to put a survey questionnaire on the website and see if the website survey generate high return rates. We are currently conducting a customer survey using other methods (survey for walk-in customers) because we are promoting the program pro-actively.

As for the customers' email addresses, Custoer Service Department has a list. It just that the set of questions are intended for them. The challenge is how do I request customers mailing list from Customer Service Department knowing that customer service is the area being meassuared here? How do we go about improving customer satisfaction in terms of the customer service? Can it be improved? Can it be broken down? Can we survey customers via email? Can we benefit commercially by improving it?

I still wait for some comments or suggestions to my 2 emails. I'd be very interested to hear any comments you may have, can anyone help me improve the 2 emails above before I send them?
 
Last edited by a moderator:

somashekar

Leader
Admin
Re: Customer Service and Customers..any help would be greatly appreciated

We will try to put a survey questionnaire on the website and see if the website survey generate high return rates. We are currently conducting a customer survey using other methods (survey for walk-in customers) because we are promoting the program pro-actively.

As for the customers' email addresses, Custoer Service Department has a list. It just that the set of questions are intended for them. The challenge is how do I request customers mailing list from Customer Service Department knowing that customer service is the area being meassuared here? How do we go about improving customer satisfaction in terms of the customer service? Can it be improved? Can it be broken down? Can we survey customers via email? Can we benefit commercially by improving it?

I still wait for some comments or suggestions to my 2 emails. I'd be very interested to hear any comments you may have, can anyone help me improve the 2 emails above before I send them?
E-mail #1
Not needed.
What can be got out from a simple internal meeting needs no mail.
E-mail #2
Text is short and sweet, but again shows to customer that you (the organization) is not one entity. Anything going to customer from CS makes good sense. Customer see you (the organization) as an entity.
 

Richard Regalado

Trusted Information Resource
Prior to requesting and using private information, do note that the Philippine Privacy Act is almost done and will penalize the following acts:

The bill lists 10 offenses with corresponding penalties namely unauthorized processing, access due to negligence, improper disposal, wrongful processing, processing for unauthorized processes, unauthorized access, concealment of security breaches, malicious disclosure, unauthorized disclosure and breach of confidentiality.

http://www.philstar.com/Article.aspx?articleId=789210&publicationSubCategoryId=66
 
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