Good communication with your online shop customers is an essential component for developing a successful business. Written communication (mostly through emails nowadays) is one of the first things that help you create a great store reputation, it is therefore very important to keep in mind some basic aspects for a successful email communication strategy.

We prepared a series of tips that will definitely help you improve your communication with current and also potential customers.

1. Fast feedback

One of the first issues that need to be taken into consideration when communicating through email is to provide a fast feedback ; you cannot afford not to respond to customer emails on time because on late reply could translate into one lost customer. Golden tip : always have an email address like info@yourshopname.com instead of a general Yahoo/Gmail one, it’s not professional at all and you will not inspire confidence.

2. Always stay “on topic”

Always answer the question/suggestion that has been addressed to you. If you do not have a solution at that very precise moment mention to your customer that you will return with an email as soon as possible and do it that way.

3. When you initiate communication

When you are the one contacting a customer by email summarize as best as possible the email content in the subject in order to stimulate your customer’s interest and read your message; message should be short and straight to the point.

4. Punctuation marks and capitalisation

Remember to use correct punctuation, this will make your message to be clearer and better understood. Do not ever abuse of exclamation points, it is not appropriate. Furthermore, uppercase should be used carefully in the email subject and in the body; even if you might be tempted to use punctuation marks and capitalised letters to attract attention, do not do it while it may be perceived by the client in a negative way.

5. Pay attention to details

Always check twice your emails for grammar error or even worse, client’s name spelling errors. Before you click “send” button you must be sure that your email is as clean as possible.

Apply these tips when communicating with your clients and you will have only positive things to gain.