The email medium is still the leading tool for mass communication letting users send valuable data and documents to hundreds of people in the blink of an eye. In the modern age, it’s missing that personal touch that an in-person conversation or a video call offers.
Because the written language is primarily up to interpretation, the tone and mood of an email can quickly be misconstrued – leaving recipients and even senders feeling dispirited. Unfortunately, this can wreak havoc for a business’ reputability over time if not addressed.
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That’s why I’m sharing my top tips on using email signatures to improve personability and engage customers in online business communications.
Focusing on the User Experience for Superior Customer Satisfaction
Both customers and employees benefit directly from bolstering the user experience. Because employees tasked with contacting clients are on the frontline, why not start with your email signature?
A refined email signature should be personalized to help make the content as accessible as possible to the recipient clearly and professionally.
For example, customer-facing employees should have an email signature with clearly identifiable assets, including links to relevant customer service information or FAQ pages. This helps recipients quickly and easily find what they need.
With the world increasingly moving to flexible, remote working options, businesses need to include portable devices in their design. It may look professional on a desktop, but with 46 percent of all emails being read on mobile phones, consideration should be given to additional formatting requirements.
In an increasingly remote and flexible world, email signatures also need to be optimized for portable devices. What you don’t need is customers or clients receiving a squashed signature with distorted images and overlapping text.
Working from home policies have fundamentally shifted traditional business operations. As we move away from desktops and embrace laptops, tablets, and mobile devices, signatures should be optimized to deliver consistently across all platforms.
Giving the Customer Their Say
Feedback plays a vital role in business development and. However, it can be tough to gauge what customers are thinking and feeling. Simple changes to your email signature can help your business grasp the tangible feedback you need to grow.
The pandemic has made face-to-face contact nigh on impossible, but with this comes a renewed demand for as personalization through digital channels as possible.
One of the easiest and effective ways to do this is by integrating a simple feedback system into your email signature.
Tools like 1-click signature surveys, integrated customer feedback boxes and simple traffic-light performance indicators will become more common as demand for remote working opportunities grows.
This lets businesses know how their offerings impact their reputability and highlight areas of improvement that can be worked on going forward.
These allow businesses to track the user experience the whole time, so they know where to focus their efforts and tweak offerings going forward.
Adding a personal touch
With businesses relegated to digital channels for much of their communication – be it through email or Zoom – many of us miss the personality of an in-person conversation.
Email signatures open the door to friendships, long-standing business relationships and improve wellbeing by helping recipients leave an interaction feeling satisfied.
Including a headshot in your email signature helps put a face to a name – so employees can receive direct praise for a job well done and help to humanize the interaction for the customer.
Adding links to personal pages, like ‘meet the team’ or even LinkedIn profiles, helps establish and develop meaningful connections between business and client.
Helping them along
These days, consumers don’t have the time or energy to be trawling through websites in the hope they find the information they need. So, businesses need to take heed of this and make the process as seamless as possible.
While email signatures are the perfect resource to show off company accolades, they’re also a convenient place to add shortcuts to any relevant website information.
For example, an eCommerce customer service team might choose to place links to FAQ or returns policy pages to streamline the transaction process and speed up customer response times.
Social media is known as a hub for company highlights but, it can also be used to usher potential customers to the latest deals. Social media is an informal forum for many consumers. It’s a place to voice suggestions and concerns and form a community, so links to these are crucial.
A uniformed response
The role of email signatures has taken many more responsibilities. From marketing to security and legal purposes, make sure your signature is consistent across the business.
Various departments often have personalized email signatures that are designed for specific purposes.
For example, a sales department might be looking to push a marketing-focused signature that promotes products and deals whereas, signatures in a legal department need to be more minimalist in design and prioritize their disclaimer.
Employees manually editing their signatures per departmental needs not only consumes time but, mistakes can mean an inconsistent brand experience for the customer.
Having a centralized system lets businesses manage the core design and content foundations of an email signature while still allowing employees to have the freedom to personalize elements of it – like adding photos or embedding links.
[To share your insights with us, please write to sghosh@martechseries.com]
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