Last week, I saw a driver swerving on the road, unsuccessfully trying to control his vehicle. Funnily enough, the driver was a taxi driver! I later spoke to this taxi driver. Apparently, he was recruited to perform administrative tasks, but then there was a surge in passenger demand for taxis, so he was asked to drive one day a week.

The only problem was, although this driver had once driven a dodgem car, he had never learned how to drive a real vehicle, nor did he have a driver license!

Now put yourself in the passenger seat! Scary?

In case you hadn’t picked up on it, this story is fictitious. Whilst one may laugh at the apparent incompetence of the driver and company, or perhaps even think about how unrealistic the above scenario is, I beg your indulgence for just a moment longer…

Swap taxi driver with Email Operator. Swap the taxi company with your company.

As a consumer, customer and customer experience consultant, I have experienced my fair share of unsatisfactory email responses from companies. The website promises so much! Sharp, modern and laden with information, my surfing of the company website has ensured I know most things about the product I am contemplating buying. I have just three simple questions before I buy. “We will respond within 2 business days”, says the web form. Beautiful! It’s 10:30pm, I’ll email!

Fast forward four days: “We thank you for your inquiry. Information on all our products can be found on our website. Have you heard about our latest offer? If you buy on our website this month, we will throw in a set of steak knives! If you have any specific questions, please don’t hesitate to contact us”.

Now I have three more questions! At the time I sent the email, was I to know I was a passenger to the taxi driver with no license? Is it my fault that the company to which I sent my simple email had not trained and accredited its email response teams? Thirdly, who are this company’s competitors, so I can send my email to them instead?

Email is the most neglected customer communication channel. Whilst most companies appreciate the need for and benefit of email in the digital world, these same companies do not recruit staff with competency in written communication. Rather, email operators tend to be “poached” from the company’s pool of telephone operators. This creates a taxi driver scenario! Email operators are not trained in the specific skills required to write emails. As a result, emails are not of a consistently high quality and email sales and service is costing your company money and diminishing your brand.

The message is simple. Give your email channel the respect it deserves and offer your email operators the training they need! Don’t swerve the obligations you have to your customers! And next time you get into a taxi…

David Goldberg is Australia’s leading email customer experience expert. He runs E-Write http://www.ewrite.com.au an email training solutions provider. A Bachelor of Laws (Honours) and Bachelor of Arts, David has worked at customer experience company Global Reviews, delivering best practice email consulting and advice to many of Australia and New Zealand’s leading companies.

Article Source: http://EzineArticles.com/?expert=David_Goldberg

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