The organization of a team’s email can severely impact customer success

When was the last time you checked your inbox? Probably, a few hours or just a few minutes ago. According to a recent report by the Radicati Group, business users send and receive on average 121 emails a day. This number may sound scary, mainly if you are a freelancer or work on a small start-up. Nonetheless, this proves that even with recent platforms like Teams or Slack, work e-mails are still a thing in the workplace.

E-mail overload and how we manage it can be a real problem, not only for big companies but also for single workers, who will have to manage all the demands on their own. Why?:

• Having loads of daily messages may lead to a lack of organization, or wrong or no prioritization at all. How do you know which sender has a more urgent request? Would you prioritize your team leader or a customer?
• Email overload can take you out of focus on what you were doing. 
• Precious time is spent on reading/replying to messages (and not only during working hours!) An estimated 28% of the workweek is spent managing e-mail, according to a study by McKinsey. This could be used on important or more vital tasks instead.
• Last but not least, this overflow of emails can lead to distress and frustration. The sense of being non-productive when realizing the time you spent on e-mails, or on the contrary feeling irresponsible for taking much time to reply, could be a really stressful experience.

All this mess may lead to an even bigger problem: your customer service will be affected by this too.

Your email communication flow will directly impact your customers

Yes, the organization of a team’s email can have a significant impact on customer success. Poorly organized internal emails can lead to: 

• delays in response times, 
• miscommunication, 
• e-mail tracking issues
• and a lack of accountability among team members.

As we said before, workers in big companies receive a high number of emails. But in small working environments, even when the number of emails could be much less, just a few people are in charge of several tasks. Thus, it is very common to forget about a specific client issue or -on the contrary – to have two members giving different replies to the same customer.

This can result in poor customer service, increased customer frustration, and ultimately, a negative impact on customer satisfaction and loyalty.

3 alternatives to reduce the mess arising from e-mail management

Use automation to improve the e-mail flow

There are numerous instances or “types” of automation that can be extremely useful to organize your team’s email management.

• Create tags or labels: through automation, you can assign tags to create rules that automatically move a message to a specific inbox. You could create different folders for customer inquiries, internal communications, and urgent matters. For example, you are the digital marketing lead, and you get reports from your team members updating you about clients’ statistics. You only check these reports once a week, so you could assign a tag for these specific reports to have them all together in a specific inbox. This way, you won’t get any of those reports lost in your inbox.
• Use automated filters: set up automated filters to automatically sort and route emails to the appropriate folders and team members.
• Automated email responses: you can set up automated responses to common customer questions. This can help to quickly answer customer queries without the need for manual intervention.
• Automatic ticket routing: automated ticket routing can help to ensure that customer queries are directed to the appropriate team member, which can reduce response time and improve the overall customer experience.
• Automatic follow-ups: automating follow-up emails or messages can help to ensure that customer queries are not forgotten.
• Workflow automation: automating repetitive tasks, such as data entry or customer segmentation, can help to streamline the process of managing customer interactions. This can help your customer service team to focus on more important tasks.

This can free up time for your team to focus on more complex or urgent issues and improve the overall customer experience by providing fast and efficient service.

Create a shared inbox

Having a shared inbox can help improve the organization of emails at work by allowing multiple team members to access and manage incoming messages. This can lead to:

• More efficient distribution of tasks and responsibilities, as well as increased collaboration and communication among team members. 
• Additionally, a shared inbox can also provide a central location for storing and accessing important information, such as customer inquiries or project updates. This can help to ensure that all team members are aware of essential information and can take the appropriate action in a timely manner.
• Setting up shared email accounts for specific teams or departments can help to improve collaboration and accountability among team members.

Add an e-mail integration

Email integration is a powerful way to help you organize your messy inbox and, thus, reduce customer response time in a digital marketing environment. Here are a few ways that email integration can help:

• Email tracking: email integration allows you to track and monitor all the team’s interactions, such as when an email is opened or a link is clicked. This can help you to understand if a colleague didn’t reply because he didn’t read your message yet, or maybe s/he simply forgot to reply. This way, you can follow up on a message only when find it appropriately.
• Implementing an email integration can also help with the organization of emails at the workplace by connecting your email service with other tools and systems. This can help to automate certain tasks and make it easier to manage and organize large volumes of emails. For example, an integration with a project management tool can allow emails related to a specific project to be automatically assigned to the appropriate team members, reducing the need for manual distribution.
• Quick access to customer data: with email integration, your customer data is easily accessible, allowing you to quickly access customer information when responding to emails.
• Prioritization: email integration can allow you to prioritize queries, so you can respond to urgent or high-priority issues first.

Implementing a CRM could improve 80% of your team’s productivity

A Customer Relationship Management (CRM) system can be an effective tool to get your team’s e-mail organized and to reduce the customer response time in a digital marketing environment. To be more specific, 45% of companies that adopted CRM software reported an increase in sales revenue, and 47% of them stated that CRM contributed to an improvement in customer retention rates. 

So, basically, a CRM can unify and simplify those 3 alternatives we mentioned above, and more:

1. Centralized data: a CRM can store all customer data in one central location, making it easy for the marketing team to access information about customers and their interactions with the company. This can help to speed up the resolution of customer issues.
2. You could have a centralized dashboard to check your different shared inboxes
3. Automated email responses: by integrating email with a CRM, you can set up automated responses to common customer questions. This can help to quickly answer customer queries without the need for manual intervention.
4. Integration with a customer relationship management system can also allow customer inquiries and other important information to be automatically recorded and tracked. 
5. Workflow management: a CRM can help to streamline the process of managing customer interactions by allowing the marketing team to assign and track tasks and set up automated reminders.
6. Multi-channel support: a CRM can integrate with various digital channels such as social media, email, and chat, allowing the marketing team to manage customer interactions across multiple platforms. Learn more about the multi-campaign management feature.
7. Automation: A CRM can automate many routine customer interactions, such as sending follow-up emails or responding to frequently asked questions. This can free up time for the marketing team to focus on more complex or urgent issues.

Have you tried Octoki?

Octoki is a complete CRM specially designed for people who work in Digital Marketing. This Software has an e-mail helper feature that allows the users to create automation in order to improve the communication flow, not only with customers but also between the team members.

Conclusion

Reducing the distress and disorganization caused by e-mail communication at the workplace is vital for marketing departments. It can improve customer success by allowing for more efficient and effective problem-solving and decision-making. With faster communication and collaboration, teams can quickly address customer issues and concerns, resulting in increased satisfaction and loyalty. 

Additionally, reducing response time between work teams can also help to prevent small problems from escalating into larger ones, which can result in negative impacts on customer relationships. 

As it is necessary to meet customer expectations in today’s fast-paced digital world, a CRM can be the perfect solution for marketers.