6 Ways Email Automation Can Elevate Your Customer Support

What is email automation?

Email automation is a broad term for any program, application, add-on or system that leverages technology to improve email sending, retrieval and storage.

Email automation also incorporates email analytics to help companies pinpoint and fine-tune their marketing efforts. By evaluating how prospects and customers react to emails – do they read them and actually click on the links within them? – companies can improve their electronic communications. 

Contrary to what the term “automated” implies, automated email marketing and communications shouldn’t be cold and robotic. In practice (and when done correctly), email automation should result in a more personalized experience for the customer.

The customer should feel the emails they receive are relevant and interesting, not impersonal, cookie-cutter communications that don’t speak to their needs or interests. Email automation can help with all of this.

6 email automation tips to enhance customer support

Fortunately, automating customer emails is easier than ever. Here are some tips on using email automation technologies to boost customer satisfaction:

1. Personalize outgoing emails automatically.

Mail merge is an essential function of email automation. Using data from the best customer relationship management (CRM) software, such as Salesforce, you can automatically embed a client’s name and company information into an email to personalize your messages.

However, personalization goes far beyond including a name. You can also use CRM software to record information about product features that may interest a potential client. Use that information to create an automatic email flow with specific personalized messages incorporating those features. 

2. Provide consistency with email templates.

When responding to support requests, your tech support team likely wastes time and energy writing new emails for each issue customers experience. Instead, use prewritten email templates to ensure every customer gets the same high-level answers to their questions. You can customize email templates for individual recipients to add a personal touch.

3. Gather feedback with embedded polls and surveys.

Learn what your customers really think by embedding a poll or survey into an email. Instead of outbound Net Promoter links, in-email polls can be an excellent way to gather customer feedback. In-email surveys are a convenient and easy way for customers to share their experiences, helping your business collect voluntarily provided survey data to improve customer service and your products.

4. Schedule emails to send later.

Scheduling emails is a massive benefit to salespeople, staff and business owners. Let’s say you have a small business with a team that works remotely at various times. However, you want to give the impression of a traditional company with regular hours. Scheduling emails to send at specific times can help. Employees who work at 10 p.m. can follow up on emails and schedule other emails to go out first thing in the morning.

5. Integrate email communications with other systems.

In addition to CRM integrations, you can integrate your email communications with Google Calendar, Dropbox, Twitter, GitHub and more. You can also connect emails with tweets or include attachments from your cloud storage service. This functionality makes email faster and more convenient, resulting in quicker customer responses.

6. Leverage email automation to improve your customer support.

Applying email automation best practices to your next email marketing campaign or customer follow-up can make your customers happier. Features like automated personalization, email templates, and embedded polls and surveys can help you engage and entice your customer base. They will appreciate your business more, and you will save time and money in the process.

Benefits of email automation

Email automation offers the following noteworthy benefits for businesses and customers: 

• Email automation boosts revenue while saving time. Automation can help you convert leads into customers, increasing revenue. Automated communication streamlines email marketing strategies, helping you reach new consumers and develop relationships while allowing employees to focus on other crucial tasks.
• Email automation enables personalized communication. Personalizing customer communications is an excellent way to increase your revenue and click-through rates. Companies that personalize communications will likely see a significant increase in email engagement because consumers find personalized messages more relevant and intriguing.
• Email automation helps you develop a deeper understanding of customers. Email automation helps you learn more about your customers and better understand their interests. By observing what your recipients interact with, such as links in an email, you can determine which communication and message types are worth pursuing and which aren’t producing a worthwhile digital marketing ROI.
• Email automation helps you nurture relationships with existing customers. While marketing often focuses on attracting new customers, it’s crucial to look to your existing customer base as a potential revenue stream. With email automation, you can easily retain current customers – and reactivate stagnant ones – by sending emails with incentives, surveys and loyalty programs.

Types of emails you can automate

Here are some standard types of emails that are well suited to automation:

• Welcome emails: An email welcoming new subscribers is an excellent way to introduce them to your services and encourage them to interact and shop with you. According to GetResponse, welcome emails enjoy a click-through rate and a click-to-open rate of over 22 percent. Automated communications can introduce your company, engage customers and highlight services you think will interest them without taking sales representatives’ time.
• Promotional emails: Automated promotional emails are a great way to drive sales and boost brand awareness. Alerts about discounts and sales events can be sent automatically based on a customer’s purchasing and browsing habits. For example, a customer who recently purchased a kitchen chair may benefit from a promotional email offering discounts on other kitchen furniture.
• Abandoned cart notifications: Abandoned shopping cart emails remind customers that they have products in their cart they haven’t yet purchased. These automated emails can prompt customers who may have forgotten about their cart and can even be used to offer a discount or recommend a similar product. For example, you could gently encourage customers to complete their purchase by including a promo code for a 15 percent discount.

Examples of good automated emails for customer service 

The following example offers a personalization option that allows you to directly address the customer. This email also provides business hours to let the customer know when they can expect a response.

Hi, [insert name]. Thank you for reaching out. We received your email and will get back to you as soon as possible. Our regular business hours are Monday through Friday, 9 a.m. to 5 p.m. ET.

The following email lets the recipient know you’re working on the issue and that they can expect a reply soon. It also offers an expedited way to contact your business if the issue can’t wait.

Hi there. We are reviewing your message and will get back to you as quickly as possible. In the meantime, feel free to contact us by phone to speak directly with one of our associates.

Best email marketing software for automating emails

The best email marketing services offer automation tools to help you create and send effective content more efficiently. Here are some options to consider: 

• Benchmark Email: Benchmark is a very affordable email marketing platform. Its free plan allows up to 250 email sends per month, while its Pro option has enhanced features for $13 per month. The Pro plan allows you to create customer journeys and automate email sequences according to specific trigger events or dates. Our full Benchmark Email review explains how the platform can automate new subscriber welcome messages, follow-up promotions based on customer actions, and after-sale review requests.
• HubSpot: HubSpot’s email functions are part of its CRM system, so the platform can trigger specific emails according to customers’ actions, such as clicking on an ad, responding to a promotion or visiting a webpage. HubSpot also makes it easy to set up automatic emails based on time or customer behavior. Our comprehensive HubSpot review explains how the platform can send an automatic email after a specific time, create a new record or task, and move subscribers to a different list segment. 
• Constant Contact: Constant Contact’s Plus plan allows businesses to set up automatic email campaigns that can immediately acknowledge customer actions, such as subscribing and ordering. It also offers lead nurturing through its autoresponder feature. Write your emails, design them with a customizable template, and set the time or trigger criteria. Our Constant Contact review explains how the platform integrates with third-party software like Salesforce to incorporate CRM features and data. 

Jennifer Dublino contributed to this article.