We’ve just received a company newsletter in our inbox. Nothing unusual I hear you say, except when you take a closer look at the CC’d field you find hundreds of other customer’s emails sitting there. What’s more shocking is it comes from a national courier company! A very well known one.

We have returned the email to the sender advising them of the mismanagement of their email communications with their customers. Being such a large company they should know better but perhaps the sender is new to mass emailing or to the company? Whatever the reason if you’re thinking of sending out a bulk email from your email software to your customers follow these 8 tips:

1. Get permission: when sending someone an email they must have consented to receive that email. if not, you are sending spam. Make sure you remove people when they unsubcribe. Email marketing services will automatically manage this for you.

2. Don’t send emails from your email software: there are plenty of paid and free solutions on the market. Brighton based Pure360 offer a great solution for a fee. Some companies such as mailchimp offer a free service provided you have a small number of subscribers and only send a few communications a month, perfect for smaller businesses.

3. Don’t mass CC: If you are going to send via email software don’t do what this courier company did! As we’ve seen in this example their customers have been exposed to one another’s email addresses. Okay, so this isn’t the worst breach of privacy but it’s not good and could potentially open customers up to more spam.

4. Keep a separate email address specifically for that purpose: once that email goes out you will get hit with a flurry of out of office replying and unsubscribe requests. Having a separate email address will stop your inbox from being clogged up so you can manage the flow better.

5. Don’t overload: Make sure your messages are targeted toward the right customer base at the right time and you don’t bombard them with lots of emails. This will depend on how much you have to say but we’d say once a month is good for the average business but some might find themselves sending one a week. Gauge customer reaction through the amount of people who unsubscribe and reel it in if you get too many.

6. Segment your customer base: this happens when you start compiling your list. Make sure you are collecting only relevant information (to comply with Data Protection Act) and detailing any specific interests they might have. For example, our client, Arundel Jailhouse run a series of different events so they would mark up against each subscriber which events they have attended. This helps target different messages to different people, thus increasing the response rate.

7. Be consistent: if you are going to commit to a monthly newsletter, make sure it is monthly! Put a regular reminder in your diary to write and send your email each month. Once you get into the habit it’ll become second nature.

8. Test and refine: using email marketing tools will always be of huge benefit even if it is for the analytics. Make sure you monitor the performance of you campaigns. See how many people opened the email, who clicked through. You can then start to refine subject lines and content to increase this.

If you want more of this then sign up to our digital marketing newsletter. And if you need any help getting your email marketing right then feel free to get in touch!

If you have read our page on what is social media, you’ll know (or perhaps you knew already) one of the main reasons for investing time in social media is engagement with your customers.

Dell’s example sets a good benchmark on how a company integrates social media tools into their business. Their next challenge is to help “revolutionise” their business.

Marketing people don’t work in customer services and customer service people don’t work in marketing; there may be good reason for that. But there will always be an argument for integrating marketing and customer service departments, or at the very least having them sat next to one another. This has never been so important as social media spreads.

How can social media help companies with bad customer service?

If you have had a bad customer service experience with a company, then you probably have felt:

• They don’t listen to your complaints
• They don’t care what you have to say
• They are only interested in themselves

These all go against the qualities needed to succeed in social media. You have to listen, engage and respond to your customers. If they are actively participating in conversations around your brand, then they have a desire to interact with your brand. Even if they are complaining, people generally complain because they want something resolved. If your product or service is that good, then chances are they want you to make it all better, so they can forgive you and start buying from you again!

Help, what do I do now?

Integrate - you might be scratching your head thinking, who is going to run our social media? Marketing or customer service? Answer: Both. At the very least, get weekly meetings between the people running your social media campaigns and your customer service department. Ideally the people running your social media campaign would straddle the two.

Monitor – use online tools or a social media agency to monitor online conversations around your brand. People online will not be coming to you to complain. Social media gives the common consumer a voice. It enables them to find other people with the same interests and concerns and discuss these. That might be positive or negative.

Listen – to what you customers are saying. Share the feedback from your social media campaigns with the customer service department. They will be able to advise on how to respond. Share feedback from the customer service department on complaints coming in from email and telephone. Pre-empt your online audience by identifying a problem and providing a solution. You’ll get points for that.

Respond - it’s no good listening and not responding. It’s a bit like talking to a brick wall; the speaker will walk away quickly. Even if you can’t provide a good response there and then, buy yourself some time. There is nothing wrong with saying you’ll get back to someone. As long as you do. Remember to respond to positive comments; these people will become greater brand advocates.

Listen again – ensure that the conversations online continue on a positive route. With social media you are opening up issues to a wider audience. You might find that someone else will jump on the band wagon if they are not happy with your response. Even though they did not start the conversation, you have to start a conversation with them.

Be careful – a brand entering a private conversation between consumers has to be careful. If the company goes about it in the wrong way, then this can do more harm than good. You need to be gentle in your approach and show the consumer that you are only interested in helping them. This is not a place for brand promotion. Leave that out!

Luckily for our clients, our business is built on a team with backgrounds in customer service and marketing, so we are experts at improving customer service through social media.