Last week I emailed a business to inquire about a product. This is the what their auto responder sent back to me:
maria@salondemaria.info,
Your Ticket has been received and a member of our staff will review it
and reply accordingly. Listed below are details of this Ticket. Please
make sure the Ticket ID remains in the subject at all times.
Ticket ID: BXG-730201
Department: General Support
Priority: Low
Status: Open
I commend them for responding back to me - although it was computer generated. However, there are a few Do Not Do’s to address:
1. Do not address your customer by their email address. Figure out some way to tweak the system so that when an email is sent back to the customer, they are addressed by their name.
2. Never tell your customer that they have a “low” priority. When I received this email and saw that I was low on their priority list, I thought Oh, great, I’ll probably get an email in a couple weeks, if at all!
3. Do not use CRM jargon. I have no idea what a “ticket” is! (Actually, I do, but for the sake of those who don’t know…)
Wow, they actually told you your request was a low priority, and then didn't set what that means? Our ticketing system doesn't include the priority, but on the phone, I encourage my reps to share what the estimated response and closure time is for the request. This helps set expectations, and allows both parties to agree when things will be resolved.
For e-mail requests, we only respond that we have received your request and offer the tracking ("ticket") number, as well as our hours of operation and escalation point contact information (yes, that's my information on that automated e-mail).
Low priority could be a good thing, if there are levels below it like extremely crappy, atrocious, thrown in the garbage, and waste of time. Otherwise, low means low.
Posted by: Phil Gerbyshak | May 24, 2007 9:15 PM | Permalink to Comment