What would you do if email suddenly disappeared? Well, according to an article in Fast Company, “Email Is The New Pony Express—And It’s Time To Put It Down,” you’d be more productive and have more time to do important things and communicate better. Thierry Breton, CEO of Actos, found that to be true when he banned email from his company of 74,000 employees in 48 countries. They rebelled; he stood firm, and was able to reduce email volume by 20 percent.
Email is a time killer. Just having your browser open is temptation to constantly check to see if you have new messages. It’s inefficient. Just try setting up a meeting or ending a conversation. “Thanks so much.” “You’re welcome!” “Don’t mention it” “You’re too kind” And on and on. Where do you end? So many emails say absolutely nothing worth reading. Leave for a day or week and you spend the better part of a day just weeding through all the old email. Email adds to the confusion when trying to revise documents or gather information. It wasn’t meant for that. Too many disconnected people with different time schedules makes gathering feedback or making decisions an exercise in futility.
Email is just a comfortable habit. The article suggests it’s one that should be broken. If companies decided to get rid of email, what would happen to all those “contact us” screens companies use for customer service issues? If customers are unhappy, using email to help solve problems may be making it worse. Most customer service email systems are painfully slow. There is no name or real person behind the info@abccompany.com email address. It could be room full of customer service reps who are randomly assigned emails to address and respond to. If email should meet its demise as the article suggests, what could be the consequences?
- More time to talk to customers. One of the greatest innovations in customer service is the “live chat.” You can sit at your laptop or iPad or Smartphone and have a cyber-conversation in real time and actually get a problem solved. No waiting hours or days for an email response that may not even be helpful. If you took a poll of customer preference, chances are they would choose a live chat session over email every time.
- Better collaboration. An online meeting, Skype, or even that dinosaur, the conference call, can get better results than tons of emails traded back and forth. Try sharing a new customer service policy or procedure through email. Some people never open them. Emails that are below the screen are lost. Putting bodies around a conference table may be old school, but it gets everyone hearing and seeing the same thing.
- Service with personality. Some customer service reps are better writers than others. Some explain things better, too. Without voice tone, body language and descriptive, vivid language, email can cause confusion and give the wrong impression. Customer service is about building relationships. It’s hard to do that with a canned response or one that seems abrupt or unfeeling.
- A sympathetic ear. Ever get an email from a customer that is more like a short story? Customers want a sympathetic ear, and while they may get relief just out of getting it all out in an email, there’s no way of knowing if anyone cares. Did the service rep even read the long story, or just pick up a few keywords and shoot back a response? More personal contact over the phone or Skype can give customers what most want in the first place—the knowledge that someone is listening and cares.
Will the end of email mean spending more time with a customer? Probably. Companies need to remember that happy customers refer their friends and neighbors. Time spent engaging with a customer is always money well spent.
Photo source: Freedigitalphotos.net
Become a member to take advantage of more features, like commenting and voting.
Register or sign in today!