Best customer service email EVERRRRRR!

by | 21 Comments

I’ve been searching high and low for an e-commerce front end for my upcoming online store.

After researching for months and building my own e-commerce store from open source codes and hiring a few freelancers, the project didn’t turn out as I had expected, and I decided to start from scratch through other sources.

Yes, sometimes failed projects cost me time and money, but failures are only failures if you don’t learn from it, right?

This time I decided to go with Shopify, a ready online store and hosting solution. Although I am paying them a monthly fee, I feel that it’s fairly priced and I don’t mind committing to it as I don’t have to worry about server fees, the design of my site, and most importantly security.

Security is definitely one of the things that I learned through the hard way because I can’t afford to mess about with it and jeopardizing the safety of my customers. So it is always going to be better if I let the experts handle it.

Anyway, back to Shopify. After signing up with them a couple of days ago and leaving it without doing anything (you know… procrastination… it happens…), one of the team members of Shopify sent me an email:

Best customer service email EVER!

“Hey Aaron!

I’m Brian, your Shopify Guru. I handle the onboarding process – getting you up and running with Shopify. If it helps, you can think of me as a personal trainer – if the software isn’t working right, I’ll help with that, but I also can help with motivation and guidance to make sure that you’re not making mistakes in how you use the software that could cost you sales and success down the road.

I’m available to you as a resource for the entire time you’re a Shopify customer, so I want to get to know you better and see how I can help :) . I’d love to know more about your business to get us going in the right direction.

I see you haven’t added any products yet. What do you plan on selling? Here’s our guide to how to add products to your site: http://wiki.shopify.com/Help:Products

If there’s anything else I can do to help you better achieve your business goals, just let me know!

Talk soon, Brian Your Shopify Guru To reach me, just email ******@shopify.com

P.S. If you’re looking for some inspiration, take a look at the Shopify Blog where we feature recently launched stores: http://www.shopify.com/blog/tagged/featured-stores

Although the email was quite general and could have been a template, it was an email that wowed me because not many services out there would send an email like this.

Some of the services out there would only send me an email when I decided to leave them (you know, to beg* me to stay with them. *kidding: templates don’t grovel).

If this email was a template, I’d have to say it is one of the most sincere ones that I have come across. The ‘voice’ behind the email is very believable, and is an excellent example of how businesses humanize themselves to talk more effectively to their customers.

If anything, this is also a great example of how customer service could efficiently reach out to their customers without being predictable or sounding constrained.

So well done there, Mr. Brian Shopify Guru, you’re my new hero, your email have made my day and I look forward to talking with you again (I responded to the email and Brian is now helping me to set up my store, well DONE!).

Bottom line is, no matter how many times we get impressed by the big, fancy features of a product, little things like these still matters to your customers and would definitely get me sticking with their services for that much longer.

What do you think? Have you experienced any services like these or have you done something similar for your customers? I’d definitely love to hear about them.

photo credits: oldmantravels

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  • LeoWid

    Wow, this is awesome, much to learn from this Aaron, thanks for sharing! :)

  • AskAaronLee

     @LeoWid Thanks Leo. The email that Shopify sent were great but I still think the email that you initially sent about Buffer is still one the best examples of a personalized email.

  • EwinsDryGoods

    I love Shopify.  My Guru Theresa has been extremely helpful and responsive through the process of getting our store off the ground.  I was amazed especially after a not so great experience with ProStores.  I still send questions out to my Shopify Guru and I get the same great service.

  • Pingback: Best customer service email EVERRRRRR! | Incredibilii

  • http://www.grownupnowwhat.com/ TammyL

    I love proactive customer service! What a wonderful service company! I know who I will look to if I make the leap to e-commerce. Thanks for posting this, Aaron!

  • ihartjillian

    Shopify is a fantastically run company. Even their accountant is nice- he helped with everything I needed! I would recommend their products to everyone!
     
    Jillian
    http://www.geekchicsocial.com

  • sajego

    It’s a template, there’s multiple versions based on whether you’ve added products or not.  But the more important thing is that there seems to be a real person behind it handling replies.  I’ve encountered a few emails from other sites that have that kind of voice, and some feel more genuine than others.
     
    I’m leaning towards switching to Shopify next time I want to redo my site… I have a self-hosted/managed Magento shop right now and it’s been okay only because I’m comfortable doing everything myself.  It’s quite time consuming, especially for upgrades.

  • Sean C Grace

    Great post Aaron. The humanized voice is something lacking in a lot of customer service interactions these days. Those that embrace it are noticed for it.
     
    In response to your last question, Yes, my company, CoupSmart, has done something similar. We offer a full-cycle social commerce platform for large and small business to activate their online marketing and obtain a measurable ROI. 
     
    Our ‘welcome’ email, as well as those that follow up based on triggers we have set within our system, has this same type of human voice to it. It’s light-hearted, but still business oriented. We try not to take ourselves too seriously. At the same time we know how to get the job done. We make suggestions to help and encourage interaction. I believe, as Shopify seems to, that this approach reads easier for the customer, and is equally informative and engaging. 

  • ideabloke

    Hi Aaron! I’ve never heard of Shopify before your post, but I would have to say that if I was to judge the company by the letter above, they have customer relations down cold!  It’s a rarity today, unfortunately, which makes it even more refreshing to see when we come across a real life example like the one in your post. 
     
    Thanks for sharing your story, which I find inspirational. Cheers!

  • AskAaronLee

     @sajego Thanks for the comment. Do share the other companies. Love to feature them as examples so that others can learn from them. 
     
    You should give Shopify 30 days trial a try. Been with prestashop for a while, it was a nightmare trying to speed the site up. Our customers complained and there wasn’t much we could do. So shopify was a great choice for us now. 
     
    Do you have experience in codes? Love to check your site 

  • AskAaronLee

     @ihartjillian Thanks for dropping a comment. They are amazing arent there? Heard so many nice things about them after this post. 
     
     

  • AskAaronLee

     @TammyL My pleasure Tammy, so glad I can help if you ever decided to leap to e-commerce. :D  

  • AskAaronLee

     @EwinsDryGoods Will check your site soon. Still learning about Shopify and definitely helps to see how great others are doing. Thank you for sharing your experience with Guru Theresa. They are definitely amazing with customer satisfaction :D  

  • http://iPadLaserEngraving.com/ sajego

    @AskAaronLee @sajego

  • http://iPadLaserEngraving.com/ sajego

    @AskAaronLee @sajego

  • http://iPadLaserEngraving.com/ sajego

    @AskAaronLee Not a developer but I can figure out how to hack things together. The site is two parts currently- ipadlaserengraving.com runs on WordPress and gets credit for bringing in most traffic. Inaflashlaser.com is the magento site. I was trying out magento because I’d really like to provide an online design-it-yourself solution, but so far everything has been too clunky and I haven’t decided to pay for something custom.

    I think Zendesk had great welcome emails. Another I remember was ClickDesk. I sent them a lot of info about my business
    and use of their software and my budget for a chat program, but when they responded it basically told me they were planning to add those features but only to their most expensive plan.

    This thread has me rethinking my own emails. I’m a one-person business but usually write we and team. Perhaps the guru approach would work.

  • http://iPadLaserEngraving.com/ sajego

    And apparently I don’t know how to make paragraph breaks that stay when posted….

    sorry!

  • http://iPadLaserEngraving.com/ sajego

    @AskAaronLee @LeoWid Love buffer. Found it through ifttt

  • http://iPadLaserEngraving.com/ sajego

     @AskAaronLee Here’s one from SaddlebackLeather.com that stuck in my memory… 
     
    Hello there Sara G—
     
    Just wanted to let you know that I sent your leather out just a little bit ago. Your tracking number is listed below along with a link to the shipping company so you can track your leather piece every couple of hours. To care for your leather piece and read about the photo contest please see the Questions page on the website. I have all sorts of tips to keep your leather in top shape there too.
     
    Oh, and by the way, a pretty good chunk of the amount that you sent to Saddleback went directly to loving people through one of those aid organizations on the Dave’s Links page. Basically, you just contributed to drilling a well for an entire village or partially sponsored a 5 year old street kid in Rwanda to get into a loving orphanage and go to one of the best schools in the country. This is the main reason Saddleback Leather exists. Just wanted to let you know… between friends. Thanks for helping. 
     
    The way I see it, out of the thousands and thousands of companies in the world, on the Internet or down on the corner selling leather goods, you chose mine and I really do feel honored. You are very much appreciated. Glad you’re in the family. 
     
    Thank you and have a great week. 
     
    Warm regards, 
    Dave Munson 
    Presidente 
    Saddleback Leather Co 
     

  • http://tech18.com Sunil Jain

    Hello Aaron :)

    Although this is a template, but it does make the customer feel it like more personal, and it has been proved in many businesses that Customer Relationship plays a major rule.

    While I was a moderator and Root Admin’s for few illegal forums (can’t mention them :P ), we used to have a template for the users who haven’t logged into our forum for more than 30 days like:

    [Start of Template]
    Hey [Name], we are missing you……
    …. and some random posts and news……

    …….
    [End of Template]

    This template worked very well for us and thus giving us more repeatable visitors. But we need to make sure that it doesn’t make the readers feel as though it is sent from a mail bot, but some individual Moderator or Root Admin.

    Now as Buffer are exploding, I have observed them very closely and totally terrified the way they maintain their customers with support and FAQ’s.

    Happy Blogging :D

  • http://twitter.com/mark_macdonald Mark Macdonald

    Hey Aaron! Mark from Shopify here. Thanks for the kind words. We’re thrilled to have you on board as a customer and I will make sure Brian sees this. Good luck with your store and of course let us know if you need a hand with anything.

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