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If you’re conducting commerce transactions online, you likely already have a transactional email program in place. But leading email service providers (ESPs) are now developing more robust transactional messaging capabilities, making it easier to create, manage, optimize and quickly send purchase-initiated emails. As a result, many online retailers are choosing to move their existing transactional programs to ESPs that can leverage today’s technological improvements to open the door to many tangible acquisition, retention, and brand marketing benefits.
Higher Customer Confidence
Although today’s consumer is more comfortable buying online than ever before, most still perceive the web and the email inbox as places where deception runs rampant and a caveat emptor or “buyer beware” attitude colors many judgments. Online shoppers first approach with caution, placing the burden of proof on you to earn their trust and confidence by delivering a smooth-running, closed-loop sales experience. Your transactional email program tops the list of ways to deliver that experience and instill customer confidence.
Certainly, your brand is judged by every email you send. --But because of their personal nature, transactional messages can have a greater affect on customer confidence than other communications. In a Nielsen Norman Group transactional email usability study, participants received a variety of emails and were asked to rate their level of trust in a company based on each email they received, assigning a score on a 1 to 7 scale, with 7 representing the highest level of trust. Overall, the report found that “people don’t really trust websites, but when they get a confirmation message, it seems like something is actually happening.” Specifically, the report showed that factors as seemingly insignificant as an email’s design elements could actually reduce a company’s trust rating by as much as two points. On the other hand, Nielsen Norman saw trust ratings increase as a series of effective transactional messages progressed. As participants’ questions were answered through the progression of transactional emails, their confidence was boosted.
Lower Call Center Volumes
As the Nielsen Norman study suggests, an effective transactional email program can anticipate and respond to common customer service needs, helping significantly reduce the volume at call centers and support desks. Nonetheless, many online retailers make a common mistake by failing to include easy alternative contact information in your transactional emails. While they may think that they will reduce customer service needs by not providing complete contact information, such a move can backfire.
Instead, lower call center volumes are achieved by using your transactional emails to anticipate and address common questions. According to the Nielsen Norman Group study, “Many organizations signal their lack of availability through transactional email… It may be understandable that a company fears the cost of responding and the volume of potential contacts from customers, but people pick up on the don’t-bother-us message and are put off by it, even when they don’t want to contact the company right now.” In addition to including efficient alternate contact methods in every transactional email, manage customer questions by compiling a list of FAQs that you link to in your emails.
Better Brand Affinity
Now that leading ESPs have helped move transactional email technology from the IT department into the hands of marketing and creative teams, it is easier than ever to build brand affinity through the look, tone, and messaging you communicate through your emails. Transactional emails should always be of a business nature, but they should also always be consistently “on brand.”
An Engaged House List
When a site visitor converts to a customer, they should not be added to your email database unless they specifically opt in. But if you take advantage of the transactional messaging opportunity to encourage recipients to become opt-in subscribers, you’ll grow a house list of previous customers who are qualified, engaged, and more likely to buy from you in the future.
Higher Online Revenue
Relevant emails drive increased sales, and since transactional emails are highly relevant by nature, you’ve got a captive audience of sorts. JupiterResearch reports that, for companies with an average monthly volume of 2.8 million promotional e-mails, optimizing transactional messaging for delivery and promotional content can generate as much as $500,000 additional annual revenue. By working within CAN-SPAM regulations for transactional messages, (see Figure 2 below) and by including an opt-in call to action, you can effectively use the information you know about a customer’s purchasing patterns to tailor synergistic offers and target future messaging to their specific needs.
Improved Inbox Delivery
Because transactional emails are anticipated, opened, and read more frequently than any other type of email, they have the potential to achieve very high inbox delivery rates. But myriad factors--including brand reputation, sending history, subject lines, and more--can affect deliverability, making it vital to comply with all permission marketing rules and best practices. It is equally important to partner with an ESP that provides the ability to track and manage delivery of transactional messages, at the same level that they can identify and proactively manage the deliverability of marketing or promotional emails.
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