Insights, hints, tips, and resources for service and support professionals, given in the spirit of sharing information.

In this Issue:

-- Sharing - Encourage readers to open their email

-- Tips from our featured GCS 2006 Speaker -  Peggy Gritt

-- Resources from our featured GCS Event Partner - BMC Software

-- Subscription Information

 

Please see the in-depth program at the Government Customer Support Conference.
This has to be one of the best programs we have ever had for our Government Customer Support Conference.  I do hope you can join us.

SHARING (top)

Dear Friends and Colleagues,

What is the likelihood your email will be opened and read?  If you work in a contact center and communicate with external customers via email this can be a critical business consideration.  If you work in a help desk an unopened email can mean another call into the help desk.

I love sharing information, particularly in email.  In fact, I started writing eSharings in 1988 when I worked at U S West Communications, now Qwest.  I was sending the newsletters over the mainframe using the VM system.  Our readers who used to work during the early mainframe days likely remember the VM systems.

We had 76 help desks and numerous IT departments across 14 states at U S West Communications.  This was just after divestiture of the telephone companies, which is the reason for so many groups. Our newsletter kept the help desks connected. Numerous contributors from across the states made this effort incredibly successful. They called me the "Email Queen".

Over the years, the list has now grown to over 10,000 readers worldwide.

The reason to share this with you is to help you think in terms of "open rates" of the emails sent to your customers and end users.  Firewalls, SPAM blockers and people being inundated with emails have significantly reduced the open rates of emails.  If you serve external customers, and include any sort of up-selling in your notices, obviously a high open rate is important.

In the help desk world, an unopened email that may be the solution to an end user's issue or  unopened help desk newsletters typically means additional calls to the help desk.

The primary way to get people to open an email is the words used in the subject line.  In research to encourage readers to open and read our newsletters I have come across some useful ideas.  Hopefully, these ideas will help increase your open rate as well.

MailChimp recently analyzed over 40 million emails sent from customers through MailChimp, and found the ones with the highest open rates and the ones with the lowest open rates.  The ones with the best open rates of 60-87% included subjects like:

• [COMPANYNAME] Sales & Marketing Newsletter

• Eye on the [COMPANYNAME] Update (Oct 31 - Nov 4)

• {COMPANYNAME] Staff Shirts & Photos

• [COMPANYNAME] May 2005 News Bulletin!

• [COMPANYNAME] Newsletter - February 2006

• [COMPANYNAME] and [COMPANYNAME] Invites You!

• ATTENTION [COMPANYNAME] Staff!

• Invitation from [COMPANYNAME]

• [COMPANYNAME] Jan/Feb 2006 Newsletter

• Upcoming Events at [COMPANYNAME]

• [COMPANYNAME] Coffee Exchange - Post-Katrina Update

The emails with the lowest open rates from 1-14% included subjects like:

• Last Minute Gift - We Have The Answer

• Valentines - Shop Early & Save 10%

• Give a Gift Certificate this Holiday

• Valentine's Day Salon and Spa Specials!

• Gift Certificates - Easy & Elegant Giving - Let Them Choose

• Need More Advertising Value From Your Marketing Partner?

• [COMPANYNAME] Moves You Home for the Holidays

• Technology Company Works with [COMPANYNAME] on xxx Efforts

There is an obvious pattern in these examples.  People don't typically open emails that look like advertisements.  There are more of these examples posted on the MailChimp's website.  They offer suggestions to increase the open rates and share conclusions from their study. http://www.mailchimp.com/resources/subject-line-comparison.phtml. They have many useful resources including templates on their website, http://www.mailchimp.com/resources.

The Ezine Queen has a very good website for all sorts of solutions for online communications too.  This is one of my favorites.  Alexandria not only offers useful ideas, she is an incredible speaker.  Check out the articles and other resources posted on her website at http://ezinequeen.com/articles.htm.

I hope this week's eSharings gives you some new ideas when you send your emails.  Whether you send to a large list of readers or individual people, the subject line has a direct impact if they open and read your email or not.

"Increase sales to your call centers and decrease calls to the help desk by using the best subject line for the results you want."

Until next week, may your days be full of fun and inspiration.

Sincerely,

Ivy Meadors
High Tech High Touch Solutions

425-398-9292

P.S. Would you like to attend the 8th Annual Help Desk Professionals Conference or the 5th Annual Government Conference, but funding is an issue. Email us at solutions4u@hthts.com and we will find a way to make it possible for you to attend.

Please join her for this dynamic session.  (Register now!)

VoIP Resources:

RESOURCES FROM OUR FEATURED SPONSOR  (top)