How to create email-auto-answers: Analysis of 100 applications to support services of IT companies

In our blog, we write a lot about creating emails and working with e-mail. We have already discussed the complexity of anti-spam , the future of email , the protection of postal correspondence , as well as the techniques of working with email , used by the leaders of large IT companies.

Today we will talk about another important topic - the creation of auto-responses from the support services of technology companies. StatusPage project employee Blake Thorn posted a blog about an interesting experiment — the project team sent 100 applications to support services from various companies to find out which auto-replies they use. The purpose of the experiment is to see weak points in such communications with clients. We bring to your attention the main thoughts of this material.
')
Unfortunately, very often the answers of the support service leave much to be desired. If the company does not make sufficient efforts to create an effective customer support system via e-mail, then its development slows down significantly.

According to Thorn, this made the StatusPage team think about how email-communication with its clients is carried out. Employees have noticed that many large companies send out automatic replies when they receive any requests. In this way, they inform customers that their message has been received by customer support, who will contact them later.

At StatusPage.io, support staff tried to respond to customers in person and in a timely manner in order to do without an answering machine. But when the number of clients of the company exceeded 2,000, the team thought about the need to install such a tool.

On the Internet, you can find information about installing autoresponders - Helpscout, for example, added this useful feature to your product. It was decided to conduct an experiment to find out how other companies respond to questions from their customers. To do this, the StatusPage team sent out 100 applications to support services of various companies. And that's what happened in the end.

Process

You do not need to be a scientist to understand that a certain level of control is needed to conduct such an experiment. You can not just send 100 applications to support services, without thinking about the technological side of the process.

Selection of companies

First of all, it was necessary to decide which companies would send bids. This is probably the most significant part of the experiment. At first glance, it seems that a hundred companies is a lot, but it’s not so easy to select this number from thousands of potential participants.

It was necessary to include in the list of many SaaS-companies, as well as a number of technology startups. Thorne writes that he wanted both small and medium and large organizations to participate in the experiment. For the purity of the experiment, it was also worth considering non-technological companies and some outdated, but still popular brands. Many of them have been working on improving their support services for decades. In addition, he listed a number of hardware development companies and several airlines.

All of these companies have a specialist recorded in a spreadsheet to track which of them were sent applications, and from which answers have already been received.

Drawing up an application

There was one catch in this project. The fact is that Thorn did not want to waste the time of support service specialists, who are already overwhelmed with work, and put them in an awkward position. Moreover, he did not want to send flimsy requests or just empty applications.
Therefore, it was necessary to write a request that would fit all these companies and give a clear idea of ​​its project. At the same time, the support service specialists could easily refuse to participate in the experiment if they did not have time for it.

Here is what happened:

Subject : This is a test.

Hello!

I’ll go straight to the point and warn you that this message is not a real request for support. For that, I apologize. My name is Blake, I work for StatusPage.io.

I have noticed that many companies install convenient autoresponders in support mailboxes to acknowledge receipt of customer requests. I would like to write about it in my blog. Therefore, I decided to send several requests to different support services in order to compare the automatic responses received from them.

If your company does not have an answering machine - do not worry, I will not blame you for this.

If I receive an automatic response from your support service, I would like to use it as an example in my article. Of course, I will refer to your company.

If you want to contact me directly to tell you more about your answering machine, I would be very grateful to you. Send answers to blake@statuspage.io (I sent this email from an account created specifically for this project).

Thank you and good luck with your work!
Blake Thorn, StatusPage.io

Submit support requests

Thorn writes that he had to work hard to send out all these applications, but he managed to learn a lot about the support process from the client’s point of view.

For the researcher it turned out to be a surprise that it is quite difficult to submit an application to the support service of many companies. In most cases, with a couple of clicks, you can find a form for an email or an email address for support. But on the websites of some companies could not find either one or the other. Then Thorn randomly sent emails to support @ and help @, hoping that someone would read them.

In most cases, it turns out that the larger the company, the more difficult it is to find a way to contact its support service. Maybe, just as the company grows, customer support fades into the background. But is there really no way to make it more accessible?

Other observations

• For those who have not yet figured out, the email addresses of support services usually begin with support @ or help @. Medium uses yourfriends@medium.com address, which is pretty cool by the way.
• One company, we will not say which one, indicated only the address of the usual, and not the e-mail. It's a shame.
• On the website, another company failed to submit an application without specifying your work email address in the format of yourname@company.com. Seriously?

Answers

As expected, Thorn began to receive answers. The following is an accurate analysis in numbers. For 100 applications sent, he received:

63 automatic responses
Wow. And answering machines are more popular than it seems at first glance.

11 conditional automatic replies
Companies that reported using an answering machine only at certain times, for example, in the evenings or on weekends.

4 responses from real people
These answers amused the researcher. Here is one of them: "And the guy from the support service, who answers very quickly, is considered?" Commendable.

13 notices of undelivered messages
It's a pity. I wish that the clients of these companies did not encounter a similar problem.

9 companies did not respond
It is difficult to say for sure what the reason is. The application may have been filed incorrectly. Or maybe they read a strange message and just ignored it. Maybe all the employees of this company have been kidnapped. Who knows...

Argument against the use of automatic messages support service (or the argument in favor of conditional automatic messages)

The StatusPage team decided to find out which types of companies are installing an answering machine, and which ones are not. The result surprised. Going deeper into the study of this question, the researchers found a pattern: the larger the company, the more likely it is that the answers are sent automatically. But there are exceptions to every rule. This applies to both tiny startups using autoresponders, and well-known companies whose support services send out answers on their own.

Airbnb, for example, received this message.

Hello,
Thank you for contacting us.

My name is Adrian, I am an expert of the airbnb community and the owner of housing in Superhost status, Vancouver, Canada. I can advise you on this.

Unfortunately, we do not have an answering machine - only people work here!

If you have additional questions on this topic, I will be happy to answer them.

All the best,
Adrian

Signs of a good automatic response from customer support

From a good auto answer you can get a lot of useful information. After reading a sufficient number of letters from support services, you will begin to notice some common signs. Here is what unites all correctly written automatic answers - they are:

1. Confirm that the application has been received

You would be surprised to learn how incomprehensible were some confirmations of receipt of the application. A message such as “your application has been sent” does not say a lot. Does it mean that someone will consider the problem? Do applications arrive in a timely manner? Do I need to save the number of this application and take additional measures? Thorne advises not to make his clients guess. You need to let them know that the application has been received.

A concrete example : Stripe payment service.

In the notification of the confirmation of receipt of the application does not need to give extra information. Immediately proceed to the point. A great example is the notice from the Stripe service. As you can see, everything is simple, clear and to the point.

Thank you for contacting us.
This brief message is sent only to confirm that we have received your application and will respond to you shortly.
Your stripe

2. Tell who and when the client can expect a response.

Be sure to let the client know when he can expect an answer. Submission of the application can pretty nerves nerves. People want to know when they will get an answer to their question whether they should try to use other methods to solve the problem. Do not forget to indicate in the message about special circumstances, such as holidays.

Case study : Zenefits and Postmates .

Some companies prudently include in their automatic responses information about the time for consideration of customer requests. Excellent examples are posts by Postmates and Zenefits.

Hello, you contacted the Postmates support service.

Solving your problems and finding answers to your questions are our main tasks. To solve urgent problems, the support service specialists will contact you within 20-30 minutes, in other cases - within 24 hours.

Good luck to you

We have received your request and inform you that we are keeping the situation under control. A Zenefits support engineer will review your request and contact you today to suggest possible solutions to the problem (pay attention to the weekend schedule).

3. Offer to use alternative support channels to solve urgent problems.

I would like to combine all support requests into one big category: applications (tickets). After all, the application is an application, is not it? Unfortunately, this is not the case. Some applications require immediate consideration, while others may wait a couple of days. You may be in a difficult situation if you begin to consider all applications in the order they are received - some problems must be solved out of turn.

For this purpose you can open additional support channels. Suppose you add a live chat or hotline number to a site so people can get help in case of emergency. For example, if a company that does business online has a server crashed at the height of the working day. If the problem is not urgent, the customer will not call, but simply leave a message.

Case study : JustFab.

According to Thorn, it is crucially important to indicate in the automatic response alternative support channels. If the support service has a live chat, hotline or any other method of receiving applications, it is very clear to inform clients about them, as does JustFab.

Thanks for your letter! One of our stylists will respond to you shortly. To solve urgent problems, call us on the phone [...] 24 hours a day, 7 days a week, or write in the chat on www.justfab.com .

Your team Justfab

4. Contain links to useful articles or suggest ways in which the client can solve the problem on their own.

Many problems can be solved without the direct participation of the support service. It is often enough to simply provide the client with the necessary information, and he will settle the matter on his own. By sending automatic replies, you can share with your customers useful materials on the topic and information on how to fix the problem.

Case Study : Flipagram .

In the automatic response from the support service Flipagram you can find a lot of useful information without even leaving your email.
One line Thorne especially liked: “Your application is considered by ordinary residents of Los Angeles who like to use Flipagram. We are glad to talk with you. ”

The text of this letter is too large to fit into one image. Follow the link to read it in full (in English).

Bonus: add humor

An automatic message from the support service should be friendly and tactful (and also correspond to the nature of your company's activities), but it can be fun. Even the automatic response from the robot can be stylish and original.

A great example is Tilt's message.

Thank you for your message!

We can not wait to help you, and we will contact you faster than Kanye West reaches the stage for the Grammy Award.

We usually work from 9 to 16 TSV from Monday to Friday, but you can read the answers to frequently asked questions in the Support Center section.

Good luck
Team happiness tilter
Thanks to the Tilt mobile app, you will spend less time on financial transactions than reading this sentence.

And in the letter from Imgur's support service you will see a link to a photo of a cute puppy.

Thank you for contacting Imgur, your application under the number [...] was received. Imgur support service is open from 10.00-19.00 TSV from Monday to Friday. We will answer your question as soon as possible.

In the meantime, look at this cute puppy: imgur.com/topic/staff_picks/YWVmuXw

If you want to leave additional comments or reply to this email, follow the link below http://.....

It is important to understand that not every company can afford such immediacy. Intending to make the answer more fun and witty, make sure that it will not be contrary to company policy. The automatic response from the company Tilt is fully consistent with its image, which is based on fun and youth.

If such an email were received, for example from Berkshire Hathaway, the user would most likely find it inappropriate.

At last

No one knows better than you whether your company’s support service should use an answering machine, Thorne is convinced. There are many different options for automatic messages.

And if you decide that answering machine is just what you need, the researcher advises to remember one thing: it takes time to compose the correct automatic answer. Some founders of companies and support service specialists are just lazy when writing automatic answers, and it’s not hard to guess why. After all, this is just a short confirmation of the receipt of the application, so why waste time and effort on writing it?

But if you think about it better, it will become clear that one day these automatic messages can result in a large number of new customers. Thousands of people who use the product can receive these messages on their email inboxes. This is the first point of contact with customers who have encountered problems, and this is the company's chance to keep them or lose them forever. You should not be frivolous, do not need to spare time for drawing up a good answer.

Additional reading

If you want to dig deeper, Thorn also advises to get acquainted with other useful materials on this topic:

• Desk.com : How to apply business rules to send an automatic message to Desk.com
• MarketingSherpa : How to improve the answers to your support service: 5 simple solutions to common problems
• Entrepreneur : Unleash the full power of the answering machine in email
• Groove : The first thing that the support service should do when receiving an application from a customer