When Effective Writing Can Retain Customers

We’ve all had disappointing customer experiences. From honest mistakes to head-shaking debacles, those incidents form perceptions that stick with us. How an organization addresses our issue has a major impact on whether they retain our business.

Although many organizations eventually lose our trust, it’s also worth noting when some get it right. In many cases, all it takes is a well-crafted message.

Two recent experiences come to mind. I received a couple of cryptic emails from Mint.com, the personal finance site. Although I wasn’t concerned about my account, the messages were puzzling. Fortunately, their simple-but-effective apology answered all my questions:

We’re speechless
A flood of emails were recently sent from .(JavaScript must be enabled to view this email address) to some Mint users. It was a misconfiguration with our email provider causing blank emails to go out.

This was not a security breach and no data was compromised. We are putting measures in place to ensure this never happens again.

We apologize for the inconvenience it may have caused you.

Sincerely,
The Mint Team

The other example comes from the postal service. A couple weeks ago, a pet store circular arrived in my mailbox. Unfortunately, it looked as though a three-month-old Lab had used it as a chew toy. It was shredded.

However, the postal service stepped up. The tattered piece was delivered in a clear plastic bag with the following message:

WE CARE

Dear Postal Customer,

We sincerely regret the damage to your mail during handling by the Postal Service. We hope this incident did not inconvenience you. We realize that your mail is important to you and that you have every right to expect it to be delivered in good condition….

We hope you understand. We assure you that we are constantly striving to improve our processing methods in order that even a rare occurrence may be eliminated.

Please accept our apologies.

Although both incidents were minor, the effective messages left favorable impressions of both organizations. For writers, the take-away is clear: We often have far-reaching influence on those customer touchpoints. In both cases, the writer considered the reader’s perspective, incorporated plain language, outlined how the organization is solving the problem, and used a friendly tone. Applying those fundamentals can ultimately influence whether a customer stays or leaves.