Customer letters are another opportunity to build a positive relationship with your clients. However, a poorly written, harsh, or confusing letter can damage your company’s reputation and drive customers away. This article will review some essential tips for crafting a successful customer letter.
1. Be empathetic toward the customer
Empathy lays the foundation for a positive customer service experience. Consequently, an empathetic approach is an absolute non-negotiable regardless of your customer letter’s subject matter. For example, if the letter is to notify a customer you’re disconnecting service due to missing payments, you want to be understanding and empathetic to their situation and provide clear instructions.
One of the quickest ways to tarnish your reputation with clients, past and present, is to mistreat them. People feel dehumanized and unappreciated when you fail to emphasize with their situation with matter-of-fact language. They will begin to associate your company with rudeness and poor customer service, which harms your overall brand reputation.
2. Provide clear information
Customer service letters must be clear, readable, and easy to understand. A vague and confusing letter is unlikely to accomplish your goals. Recipients will not take the desired actions- and you may be inundated with phone calls from frustrated customers!
Formatting also plays an essential role in readability and laying out clear instructions. For example, recipients tend to lose interest when letters are excessively long, generic, or feature large blocks of text. Instead, break up the text into small paragraphs, use bold sub-headings, bullet points, and clear calls to action.
3. Instructions should be easy to follow
Just as the information should be presented clearly, so should any instructions. Again, customers must clearly and quickly understand what you’re asking of them.
Part of creating easy-to-follow instructions is understanding your customer. For example, expecting all of your customers to respond online may be unrealistic. Instead, your instructions should include an online action and a phone number. Then, non-web-savvy customers can call for support.
4. Stay on brand
Customer letters are another representation of your company and should be consistent with your brand. Consistent branding is crucial to building a recognizable brand that people trust.
Every customer service letter should be written in the same tone of voice as all of your other marketing and branding material. If you use a highly professional tone across your website and social media channels, this should be reflected in the letter.
Additionally, customer letters should be formatted following your brand’s writing and visual guidelines. Use the same colours, fonts, and logo as you do elsewhere.
Need help writing or editing your customer letters?
Circlewood Creative provides professional writing services for businesses. If you need a professional, empathetic, and clear letter to send to customers, we can help. We also offer editing services if you have existing letters requiring rewriting for tone and empathy.
Contact us today to learn more.
