Expressing Your Brand Through E-Mail

Author: Jim Sterne

Be careful how you use your e-mail. It speaks volumes about you and your company.

E-Mail As A Branding Tool? You Bet Your In-box.

Keeping in mind that every customer contact has an effect on your brand, it's time to pay close attention to the way most of us reach out and touch our customers through e-mail.

Today e-mail is used for advertising, moving a prospective customer through the sales cycle, and providing customer service. Each one of those touch-points is an opportunity for your company to do some good or some harm to your brand.

At The Tone, Your Brand Will Be Altered

What's the tone of the messages you send out? There are three general answers to that question:

Serious, business-like, formal, dry;
Light, breezy, personal, happy, cheerful, or;
(and most likely) We have no idea what are you talking about?

When you rent an opt-in e-mail list like Yes Mail.com, the messages you write are for advertising and marketing. They are well thought-out, well designed, well planned and well timed—or should be. But where do they fall in the continuum between impersonal spam intent on selling another CD of e-mail addresses, a formal notification that your product has been known to cause cancer in mice, and a note from your mother telling you you're brave and kind and smart and she loves you?

Somewhere in there is the personality you express with every message you send out. Good, bad or indifferent, realize that the tone of your message is communicating as much about your company as the offer you're sending out. Top advertising and marketing people decide on the image they want to project, and do their best to be consistent. Customer service people should be consistent as well.

RSVP

Putting up a website is an open invitation to send you e-mail. How quickly you respond makes a huge impression on the other side of the screen. Score 4,000 points for responding before your customer expects it—with a message that answers his question or solves his problem.

How soon does your prospect or customer expect a response? It depends.

If they're trying to buy flowers from your website, an hour may be too long. While you should never let e-mail sit unanswered for more than 24 hours, answering sooner is always better than later.

If e-mail languishes, unanswered within your company, the possible reactions are that your e-mail doesn't work, your organization isn't bright enough to make it work, you're too busy at the moment, or you simply don't care about your customers at all. You simply wish they'd go away and stop bothering you. And if you ignore them long enough, they will.

An instant auto-response that bounces back telling me that my message was received isn't necessarily a positive brand experience, either. Especially if it has the feeling of those awful messages that put you on hold and tell you how important your call is—and would you please hold for the rest of your life.

Make the most of an auto-responder and tell your customer that his e-mail was received, that it is being routed to the proper person for a proper response, and that it has been assigned issue number 476535. Now your customer has something tangible he can use to bludgeon you with if he doesn't hear from you.

The Personality Database

Do you have a collection of answers to frequently asked questions (FAQS) that you, your sales people, and your customer service representatives draw from, to help speed customer response time? Who writes those? What personality do those FAQS project?

Are you formal? Curt? To the point? Does your e-mail look like everybody on staff has a law degree and is very interested in protecting the firm from liability claims?

Do your messages include sentiments of concern? Do they show a sincere interest in the customer as an individual?

Are your messages chatty? Casual? Personal? Do they give the impression that your company is open, friendly, and genuinely interested in your customers' well-being?

Do your e-mail messages sound like this:

"We recognize that the potential of the Fleegman Chain Saw to intermittently fail may cause some inconvenience for some of our customers. Please forward any further documentation to Mr. Thurgood Fleegman, ESQ."

Or do they sound like this:

"Holy mackerel! Thank you for letting us know, Bob. Jeepers but we're so sorry to hear about what happened! We've always tried to ensure that the Fleegman Chain Saw is the safest in the world so I'm forwarding your message directly to Bob Fleegman who's responsible for all product design issues. Helen Fleegman is in charge of customer care, and she'll be in touch with your insurance company this afternoon and everybody here is very impressed with your acumen, with your wireless Palm Pilot, given the circumstances. We'll all be rooting for you and the reattachment of that thumb!"

Which is the best answer? Obviously somewhere in between.

Your E-mail Message Image

The point is not to smother your customers with Band-Aids and flowers, but to select a communication style that best represents your company and stick to it.

Discuss the image you want your customers to have of your company and decide which perceived personality traits are the most important. Then outline a policy that communicates this image to those in your firm—those who communicate through e-mail. Give them some tools that will help them reflect those traits and write a bunch of "sample copy" to show them what you mean.

Finally, and perhaps most importantly, randomly monitor the e-mail communications that go out. You might be able to pluck a couple of bad apples out of the barrel just in time.

A Real-Life Story

My wife got me a digital camera for our anniversary—wonderful toy. The first time I took it out on the road, I noticed that it beeped every time I changed a setting or took a picture. It was annoying.

I was at the airport waiting for a plane at 6:30 in the evening on a Friday and decided to take a look at their owner's manual. There was my camera and a world of information about how wonderful it would be to own one. But no clues as to how to use it.

I filled out a form on their website with a single question: "How do I turn off the 'beep' on this particular model?"

On Saturday, I used the camera and annoyed those around me with its incessant beeping. On Sunday, I left it in my suitcase. On Monday I had meetings and on Tuesday, I got a response that consisted of my question, and a one line answer: "Page 98, owner's manual."

I was shocked. I was stunned. I resorted to derision. I replied with his message intact and my only addition was, "This is a joke, right?"

He didn't think so. Three days later I got the reply:

Quite seriously sir; page 98, of your owner's manual explains: 'Setting the Beep Sound.'

Pardon me, while I go see about having my thumb reattached.