Whether you’re talking to clients 1:1 or 1:many, email is going to be a critical part of your communication stack.

That said, writing every email from scratch is an insidious waste of time for CSMs.

(Miguel Á. Padriñán / pexels)

For instance, you might think nothing of taking 10 minutes to craft a thoughtful welcome email to a customer. However, that’s not where it ends. It’s not just the welcome email, it’s also follow ups. And it’s applied to your whole book of business.

The reality is much less rosy: employees spend 28% of the time per week on email (about 11 hours per week).

Given the demands placed on customer success–especially in turbulent markets–you need as much of that time back as possible.

Fortunately, automated emails keep you and your clients connected with less effort and time. Here are the top nine email templates to keep in your arsenal of customer success tools.

1. Welcome

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Every customer is going to get a welcome email of some sort.

Here are the essential elements to include:

• Introduce yourself, letting your client know you’ll be taking care of them from here on out (a.k.a “the hand-off”).
• Provide essential contact info.
• Share any specific onboarding steps (e.g. booking a kickoff call).

Note: This one email could be split into two or three separate ones – 1) The Welcome, 2) The Hand-off and Introduction and 3) The Onboarding email.

2. Check-ins

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Checking up on your clients at regular intervals is essential to building a relationship and keeping them engaged. It not only makes them feel like a valued customer, but it also serves to generate feedback for improving your products and the customer experience. As a bonus, checking in periodically can turn an inactive customer into an active one again.

Some elements to include:

• A genuine reach out simply asking how things are going.
• A relevant news article or update about the company (you can automate these with Google or Talkwalker Alerts).
• A trigger-based reach out (e.g. if usage is growing or slipping).
  
  

3. Conversion

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This template is mostly for free-tier or trial clients you want to convert into paying customers. The goal is to get them into your sales funnel, whatever that looks like.

Some elements that might be useful include:

• Explaining useful features.
• Reminding them their usage is near (or at) their limit.
• Offering a demo, phone call, or chat to talk about the full feature set.
• Links to helpful blogs.

4. Unresponsive client

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Reach out to customers who have been unresponsive or missing in action for too long.

Some elements you could include:

• Offer to help them solve problems.
• Tell them about new features or add-ons that might help them meet their goals.

The goal of this reach out is to re-start a conversation rather than sell something. Keep that in mind–if they haven’t been responsive, an email asking them for money likely won’t go over well.

5. De-escalation

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When you see that a customer has encountered a problem (e.g., they logged a support ticket), affirm that you are aware of their situation.

Elements to include:

• Share that you and your team are working to resolve their case.
• Briefly explain what you're doing to make things right and assure them you’re taking steps to prevent future occurrences of the same kind.

This kind of reach out is more about relationship building than necessarily helping anyone. That said, customers want to know they are being heard; even if you aren’t emailing with a solution, sending a note that you’re aware of the issue can go a long way.

6. Invitation

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Invite your clients to view a talk, webinar, seminar or live Q&A session. Help them link up to on-demand replays if they can’t attend live.

Elements to include:

• Who the webinar is for.
• Benefits of attending live.
• What someone gets even if they can’t attend live.
• Who will be on the webinar.

7. Feedback request

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You absolutely need the voice of the customer embedded throughout your organization. The best way to get there? Ask for feedback.

Some elements to include in your feedback request:

• What the feedback is about (General? A specific feature? Something else?).
• A link or button they can click to provide feedback.
• Approximately how much time you are asking them for.

You can also consider an incentive like a discount or gift card, though this isn’t always necessary.

8. Churn prevention

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Let’s say you’ve done all the above but still have a client who hasn’t logged into their account recently. Have a churn prevention email ready.

Some elements to include:

• A catchy subject line to encourage them to open the email in the first place.
• An honest message that you noticed they haven’t logged into the platform in a while.
• An offer: how can you help? This might be a call, blog resources, FAQs, or something else.

You can even offer stories of successful clients to inspire them.

9. Renewal

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The customer journey is cyclical. In a perfect world, when it’s time to renew, the client signs up and begins their journey again. Don’t automatically assume they will, however, even when you’ve put your best foot forward and worked hard to build a relationship with them. Show each customer how much you care by sending a renewal email when it’s almost time for them to reestablish their contract with you.

Elements to include:

• Include renewal instructions. No action may be needed if their payment information is up-to-date and they set up auto-renewal.
• Otherwise, tell them the steps for renewing again or setting up auto-renewals for the future.

Time-saving client success tools

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Email templates are efficient, time-saving tools for any CS team’s toolbox. They help you communicate with your clients effortlessly while coming across as proactive and caring. Additionally, they enable you to develop a consistent tone of voice for a professionally cohesive effect.

With intuitive customer success software like Catalyst, you can establish triggers according to criteria within customer journeys or health scores for auto-emailing clients in a timely manner.

Infographic

When communicating with clients, email plays a critical role. However, writing each email from scratch is a waste of time for CSMs. Fortunately, automated emails provide an efficient and effortless way to keep you and your clients connected. Find out the nine email templates to enhance your customer success tools in this infographic.

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