Email Customer Service: It’s About Me
I just got a really great email from the team at JustGive. It was entitled “Your 2010 JustGive Tax-Deductible Donation.” The email reminded me how much I donated last year and notified me that my gift is tax-deductible.
They also used the email to thank me for donating and included a sentence about their mission and how I helped contribute to it.
I think this is fantastic customer service and great marketing. Good email is personal, relevant and anticipated. It is personal in addressing me by my first name and thanking me for my gift with the exact dollar amount. I am beginning to think about taxes, so the email is very relevant and anticipated. Best of all the email is about ME, not them!
This email tells me a few things about JustGive. For one, here is an organization that has its act together. This makes me feel better about my gift and about donating in the future. Second, this shows they value their donors. The relationship didn’t end when I hit “submit” to process my donation. Finally, here is an organization that wants to hear from me. They provided an email address where I can contact them. They also include call outs to connect on Facebook, Twitter and their blog.
Faced with the amount of work a development department must manage, it could be easy to skip an email like this. This email doesn’t raise money. Why not spend the staff effort creating emails asking for money? I would venture this type of email coupled with eventual email solicitations will lead to more donations than just an email strategy of soliciting. So put your email solicitation on hold for a bit and plan some customer service emails. Start with one like this. After all, imitation is the sincerest form of flattery.
