194: The Perfect Support Email with Craig Stoss

Charlotte Ward: 0:13

Hello and welcome to episode 194 of the Customer Support Leaders Podcast. I'm Charlotte Ward. This week we're talking about the perfect support email. So stay tuned for five leaders talking about that very topic. I'd like to welcome to the podcast today, Craig Stoss. Craig, lovely to have you back this week talking about the perfect support email, which I don't think I've ever seen a perfect one, actually.

Craig Stoss: 0:47

I mean, I think it's it's tough. Uh I mean, you could spend hours trying to craft every single word and still have it come across differently than you you maybe intended. And I think that's just the nature of language and tone. And and you know, I I apply the same thing to food. You know, they they talk about how your ambiance changes the way you taste food. And I think email is the same way. The mood you're in changes the way you read an email.

Charlotte Ward: 1:15

For sure, for sure. And it's all about that customer context that you and I have had umptine conversations about right now, isn't it? So yeah, so given that we we may not know the customer context or know very little about it at the point at which we're doing this outgoing communication. We're forming these words in in Zendesk or literally in an email or you know, one of these kind of long text boxes somewhere that's that's not that real-time chat that actually takes a bit of thought, a bit of like composing. Um, just to frame this as not like necessarily being inside your Gmail, like it's like it's that that long form outbound communication. Um what's the best we can do if we don't have all of that customer context?

Craig Stoss: 2:09

In general, I think all of this has to come from a point of understanding or a position of understanding. Um, it a lot of times we focus on not accusatory language, but certainly language that's more harsh to the people reading it. So, oh, you clicked this button incorrectly. You know, that that's a it's a fair phrase, it's not it's not really inflammatory, but if someone's in a bad mood and they read it, like you're telling me this is my fault, you know. Um, and so so rephrase that is like, can we validate that this button was was correct uh correctly checked, or or whatever the whatever the case might be. And and if you come at it from that place of understanding, it takes away some, certainly not all, but some of that um that element of of riling up people or that the language can be misconstrued as accusatory or or dismissive or things like that. And and that to me is the biggest tip that I've always told my teams is is just focus on, I want to understand your situation. I don't want to tell you what you did wrong. I don't want to, you know, go on about all the excuses of why something went wrong. I want to understand the situation and I want you to help me understand what you're what you're visualizing.

Charlotte Ward: 3:26

That makes sense. You know, the biggest single example I've seen of that multiple times, both in organizations I've worked for and most particularly when I've been a customer, is the the kind of language that infers that I've come to the wrong place to ask for help. You know, could you you've come to the wrong email address, or could you please use this form instead? Or could you, you know, could you pick up the phone or go through some other channel, right? It's it's like that that accusatory thing of like I should have known better, I should have known how to how to form the communication in the first place so that they could succeed. And I think I think that's uh I think it's actually about having systems that allow that work for your customer rather than forcing them through. But I think that's a whole other podcast topic, right? Um yeah, yeah, absolutely. Yeah, so so so then it's understanding, it's avoiding that finger pointing. Um what what else is it about? Um I mean, with are there particular like types of email that we should approach differently, say?

Craig Stoss: 4:36

Yeah, I I see three high-level types of emails, right? The the first one typically is something about purely understanding, you know. Um it's it's you know, have I got your your concern correct? You know, if if it's something that they've described, um it's it's you almost reiterating that the problem in in different words or trying to make sure that you understand the issue. Um, it could include um what I call an attack plan, which is a, I want to check these three things. And if you know, number one is true and number two is false, then that means this is going to happen. Or, or maybe it's a, hey, have you read this knowledge base article? Because I think if if you read this and it still doesn't work, you know, can you tell me which step is failing so I can be a little bit more clear? But it's it's uh a very descriptive email, a very uh trying to assess the status and and to some degree the mood, right? Because it's very hard sometimes to get that mood from that initial email. So that that to me is the first type, just very much an understanding, a level setting, an expectation setting, and a planning exercise. Then there's probably the easiest type of email, which is the good news email. Like, oh, I've solved your problem. Here is a full description of the problem and and the solution that I've come up with, and um, you know, great news, it's exactly what you wanted. You know, we're gonna we're gonna we're gonna beat your expectations in the in the in the best case. Those are those are the easiest emails to write because there's not much you can disconstrue when you're when you're giving the customer exactly what they want or more than what they want. And then there's the hardest to write, which is which is the news, the bad news emails. And this is a phrase I know I've used with with you and and on Twitter. And it's, you know, I've never had a customer angry with me for telling them the truth. They're sometimes angry at the truth, but they've never never been mad at me for being honest with them. And that is the mentality I take to that third type of email all the time. I'm gonna tell you the truth. Um, it sometimes is scrubbed a little bit for technical detail or something internal confidential information, but but it's the truth. I'm not gonna sugarcoat it, I'm not gonna try to spin it and be like, oh, this negative thing I'm telling you, you know, that's a positive thing. We get this all the time with uh, you know, big corporations who are like, oh, to provide you better service, we're gonna charge you double this month than what we charged you last month. And it's like, yeah, well, that's spin. That's the you know, that's that's marketing. And uh supports jobs shouldn't shouldn't necessarily be about marketing. And so um, and that one is the one that that takes the most practice. It takes practice to, again, not be accusatory, it takes practice to not say uh to to to do alternative positioning in an email and say, hey, we can't do this thing you want, but here's how we would solve this problem in another way, or here's options. I remember writing uh in a particularly tense moment email a few years ago where um we couldn't solve the the problem. It was a it was a it was a staffing issue that that they was affecting time zone-based uh support. And I kind of said, but here we already have a plan to address this. We knew this was gonna be a problem for you and other customers. And here are the three or four things that we are gonna do, you know, things like better knowledge bases, better automation. Uh, we are gonna staff up the team. Like we and we listed those things and said, we're doing this for you. It's not available today. I'm going to be honest with you, it, but you know, here's a rough timeline of when we're going to correct it. And those emails are the toughest. Those emails are the ones that I would spend, you know, a few uh well minutes or or maybe even an hour making sure I'm crafting correctly and and and making sure the language is right, uh, because those are the ones that I think do uh anger customers the most, or potentially could anger customers the most.

Charlotte Ward: 8:22

I I do agree with you though, that um if you can at all offer an alternative or at least at least greater context, that that just diffuses the situation substantially, doesn't it? And I I think you know, I I think that idea of offering an alternative that isn't obviously an alternative is is is really valuable, right? I and I think it may be that um it may be that that it's not I you know those emails can take an hour to write because that's not always obvious. Like it's it's hard to extract because it does require you to understand what might be acceptable to the customer, right?

Craig Stoss: 9:08

And and I think actually I'll go one step beyond what's acceptable to the customer. I think it's it's what the problem actually is, right? It's one of those things where customers have their own context and perspective, and they're coming at the problem, almost presuming what the solution is, right? It's it's I have this problem, you need to change this thing so that I I can finish what I've got to do. And and you know, as support, part of that is to recognize well, actually, we have a better way for you to do that, whether it's a different way of using the product, whether it's a completely different mechanism, whether it's a feature they aren't even aware of, whatever it might be. And um, I see this a lot in the deeply technical support when you're dealing with developers or engineers, people who probably have spent two, three, four, five hours trying to troubleshoot their own problem because they love doing that. That's what their job is. And then they come at you and they're like, okay, well, this is broken. And you're like, well, no, it's not. That's how it should work. But there's this other thing that you didn't, you know, you didn't look at that that actually does exactly what you want to do. Like it actually solves your problem more effectively than fixing this other thing that that isn't really the direction we designed the product in. And and that that context is important um for you to come to that that mutual agreement on. And so um, and again, those are those are good news cases. Then there's the bad news case where it's like, no, what you you're right, what you just said doesn't work and may not ever work. And so, you know, let's take a full step back of what are you trying to achieve and can can we even do it. And and um, those are different types of conversations that that people should have. But it's um to me, it's all about making sure that the perspectives are aligned in some way. And that that goes back to the first type of email I talked about, where that that you know, first kind of like look at do I understand your problem correctly in in these words and coming to that agreement early on in the process.

Charlotte Ward: 11:07

Yeah, yeah. A good email is is primarily empathic, right?

Craig Stoss: 11:12

Yeah, yes, yeah. That's that that should be your focus, is is again, again, as a customer experience person, you know, empathy, understanding, um, uh clarity is is is probably another key word I would throw in there. These are the types of things that that your focus should be on. In in in most, and quite frankly, in any email. If I if I'm emailing uh, you know, a recruiter for a job, if I'm emailing uh a peer in my network and asking, you know, for a coffee, you know, those all those things should still be in those emails, like recognizing that people's time is busy, recognizing that what you're asking might be an imposition, um, all of those things should should aren't specific to support. I think they're amplified in support because the mood in support is often aggravation or frustration because something is is typically wrong. But um, but it's not it's no different than any email you write.

Charlotte Ward: 12:08

Yeah, yeah. You're right. The mood in support is often one of aggravation or irritation. But I I I I I think that's that's uh it's important that we recognize that, right? Because I think that um we take a lot of that on, uh you know, when we're when we're dealing with that all day, we take a lot of that on. And actually, I think you're right, it carries through to every conversation that I have and uh or that we have in support, right? And how easy it is to let that aggravation build and that irritation build. And then before you know it, you're hammering out uh like a slightly frustrated and infuriated or infuriated email to the guy you want to have coffee with or whatever, or maybe just the recruiter at the next role you're looking for. Who knows? But yeah, that makes sense. So so kind of I guess like ratcheting that down as much as you can is important.

Craig Stoss: 13:05

Well, and I think it's also there's also a context of email. People know when you write an email that you've had some time to think about it. If if you misspeak on a phone call, I think people are a bit more forgiving, right? Or if you use uh uh, you know, maybe a weird shortcut when you're in a chat or a text message support type situation. I mean, we see this all the time on social media because social media, you know, Twitter has a character limit. So you see people using THX to mean thanks, or or you know, uh, you know, DM me instead of you know, send me a message, right? It's those those are short forms that I don't think are as acceptable in in an email context. And so there I know this chat is specifically about email, but I think there's a lot of context there that maybe it's it's not even something that explicitly is there, it's more of a subconscious thing. But if I get an email and it's full of spelling mistakes and it's you know it's not worded well and it's spaced weird, and it doesn't it doesn't look correct. I know my attitude is different than if than if it's not, right? And and that because part of that is is you had the time to change this. There there was no rush on this thing that you wrote. And uh that's why automated emails frustrate me so much. You know, talking about the perfect email, the opposite of perfect email is an automated email that provides no context, no added value, and and is clearly formed, and especially what it ends with do not reply to this email. This is an unmanned man, uh uh unwatched uh inbox, you know. So it's totally opposite.

Charlotte Ward: 14:38

So much to unpack. Uh I I wrote once about about an email I'd had from my bank. Um the subject, you know, the truncated subject of the email email was we care about and value your custom on words to that effect. The email address was do not reply. I love that. And they were just right next to each other in the inbox. Um and the other thing that you said, which I just want to kind of slightly loop back on, which is you know, that understanding that if someone is emailing you, they've had time to think about it. And therefore you expect it to be well formed, well structured, uh complete, and all of the things you'd expect in a proper, well-thought-out communication. But I think there is, and I'll just keep this brief here, but I think I think there is an interesting um issue here, and I don't have the answer to it, but I'm interested in your kind of 90-second thought on it. That on the front line in support within a CRM or within a help desk, say you're in Zendesk, you're responding to customers all day. Sometimes we do have a lot of time to look at a ticket that we haven't looked at for three days, and we've we've researched and we come back and we do a full, well-formed, complete email. Um, and but that is going in a text box in Zendesk or somewhere, let's face it. So on the other hand, we have those moments in the day where we're fully engaged almost real time with a customer, and we're still putting communications in the same text box in Zendesk. Um and I have come across organizations where the expectation has been that you treat every instance of that text box as if it were an email. So you start dear customer name, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, many thanks, blah, blah, blah, you know, and you do the full email, even if you just sent them a kind of one-sentence response three minutes ago, and it can get a bit odd, I think. Um, and so I think like understanding the difference between the two is important as well. And I think that's about timing, as you said. And I think ultimately like it comes down to when did I last speak to this customer? And that allows you to differentiate the two. What's your what's your take on how how much uh protocol you should layer on the frontline support team when it comes to communicating in those different ways, but essentially through the same medium?

Craig Stoss: 17:14

Yeah, that's an interesting question. I I think you're right. There's probably no answer, and it probably varies depending on industry, but I feel like there's a natural flow to these things. And so it's not so much protocol as what makes sense. You know, I just I actually just had a thread with uh with one of my freelance clients where you know it starts out, oh, hi Craig, nice to meet you. My name is so-and-so. Here's what we're looking for. And then I would just want to, hi, you know, Natalie. Uh, this is what I'm working on. You know, here's how we're going to structure it. And then all of a sudden it's like, okay, well, you know, when do you want to meet? And then the reply was, can you do 1230 on Monday? You know, because that's the natural flow of a conversation. You know, you don't need the hi Craig, 1230 on Monday works for me, you know, signed Natalie. It's it's it's not it's not that type of thing. And I would treat support very similarly. Like, I mean, there are people who uh you know want to be more formal and and and especially in in some European places and and in Japan and countries that are a much more formal way of speaking compared to maybe North American style and culture. Um so I do think you have to you have to read the situation a bit. I think tools like Text Expander, you know, that help you kind of have macros that fill stuff in. Zendesk has a great macro system, you know, those help with that. Some, you know, without trying to be too robotic, it still helps you kind of fill in some of the blanks. Um those are the types of things that that I would encourage you to look into. But but I think there has to be some training on, you know, making sure the conversation flows naturally while still remains, you know, whatever professional or or uh whatever tone you you want to go for as a company. Um you know, a quick story about professionalism, um, something I learned incredibly. It was actually my very first support job way, way back, you know, longer ago than I want to say on this podcast, um, where uh someone named Christopher wrote in to me, uh, it was a problem, and I wrote back and said, you know, hi Chris, blah, blah, blah, blah. And he came back to me and said, My name is Christopher, not Chris. Please address me with my name. And it was a very like in bold. And and uh, and so you know, from that point on, I learned like, you know, use the names people sign their emails with. Because if generally speaking, if someone named Jennifer signs with Jenny on their emails, you're probably okay to call that person Jenny. But if they sign with Jennifer, you know, uh start with Jennifer. And so there's there's little subtle, subtle things that I think um do impact people. Um and and you need to keep uh keep a close eye on that. And and so that's I think that fits into the same part of the question of just making sure the conversation flows naturally and it's it's human.

Charlotte Ward: 20:00

Yeah, absolutely. Make sure it's human is is the uh the message at the end of the day for all these messages. Thank you so much, Craig. Thank you.

Craig Stoss: 20:09

Thanks, Shirley.

Charlotte Ward: 20:13

That's it for today. Go to customersupportleaders.com forward slash one nine four for the show notes, and I'll see you next time.