As a business owner, you know the importance of developing and maintaining positive customer relationships. In fact, most businesses do a pretty good job when dealing with customers face-to-face. But too often, business owners and their employees fail to recognize that the written communications they send can significantly affect how customers feel about the business.

E-mail and letters that fail to answer customers’ questions or address their concerns, are hard to read, are abrupt in tone, or contain errors convey the message that you don’t place much value on the customer’s business. Poor writing can also cause frustrating misunderstandings that waste valuable time and resources. It’s a worthwhile investment of time and money to make sure that every e-mail and letter your customers receive is friendly, helpful, and conveys a positive image of your business. Here are some suggestions to help you start improving your customer service writing today.

Establish standards for “good” writing. Of course, your standards – the criteria for written communications to your customers – will reflect your own business. But to meet the basic standards for good written communication, do the following:

• State the main point clearly, right at the beginning. People often read only the first few lines of an e-mail message or a letter before deciding whether it’s worth their time. Get your most important message out right away, even it’s bad news. Then follow with the details that support and/or explain that main point.
• Respond clearly and directly to the customer’s specific questions and concerns. Customers who have asked you a question or raised a concern aren’t interested in hearing how much you value their business; show them that you do by answering their questions and addressing their concerns. If someone asks a question, focus on answering it. If someone has experienced a problem, focus on what you will do to resolve it, not on why it happened or who was at fault.
• Use the right tone. Most people are careful not to be rude or abrupt when speaking to customers on the phone or face-to-face. But the same people sometimes fail to understand that the tone of their written communications can either reach out to customers or push them away. Especially when writing e-mail, avoid an abrupt or overly casual tone by writing complete sentences and using ordinary language instead of pompous language and jargon. Be friendly and polite. NEVER use all caps – it feels as if you’re shouting. Check the tone by reading what you have written before you send it.
• Keep sentences and paragraphs short and proofread for errors. Long sentences and paragraphs are difficult to read, especially on a computer screen. Errors in grammar, punctuation, and spelling make your message seem less credible and convey a sloppy image of your business.

Provide training to your staff. Even employees with an extensive knowledge of your business and excellent customer service skills often lack the skills needed to communicate clearly in writing. That might have been acceptable before e-mail became such a key part of doing business, but these days, everyone needs to be able to write. Here are some ideas for helping employees improve their writing:

• Send them to a workshop. If writing to customers is a significant part of your employees’ jobs, it’s probably worth the expense of sending them to a good writing workshop. Choose a workshop that provides practical “how-to” techniques, is tailored for the specific group, and provides opportunities for job-related practice
• Give them a self-directed learning program. Self-directed learning, such as a self-paced learning workbook or a computer-based learning program, can be a good alternative to a workshop for motivated self-starters.
• Hire a coach. A business writing coach can work with individuals or small groups to help people improve their business communications by focusing on the day-to-day writing that people need to do.

Develop flexible templates to replace inflexible form letters. In any business, people need to write the same kinds of communications again and again. Templates save time and increase the chances that written communications meet your standards. But using templates successfully requires more than replacing dates, names, etc. Make sure that you and your staff know how to know when to use a template, are able to choose the right template, and can make the necessary changes so that the e-mail or letter communicates clearly to a specific customer in a specific situation.

Periodically assess your customer communications. At least twice a year, take a close look at the e-mail and letters you send to customers. Read a representative sample of the e-mail and letters you have sent as if you were the customers to whom they were addressed. Send out a survey asking customers how well your written communications are meeting their needs – encourage people to respond by offering a reward, such as a one-time discount a product or service. If necessary, redo your standards, update templates, and provide staff with additional training to make sure that all your written communications meet – or exceeds – your standards for excellent customer service.