Is email still a crucial channel for customer relations in 2024?

Email has been an essential tool of communication for many years, but will it still be the preferred channel for customer relationship management in 2024? Faced with the rise of new technologies, its future may seem uncertain. Read on as ProContact takes a closer look at current trends and gives you an insight into the crucial role that email continues to play.

A long-standing, high-performance channel

Email has firmly established itself as a pillar of commercial communication, offering numerous advantages:

• Ease of use and accessibility: universal and easy to use, it reaches a wide audience.
• Affordable: a low-cost solution for sending personalised messages on a large scale.
• Flexibility and personalisation: adaptable to different objectives and audiences, it allows you to create unique interactions.
• Measurement and analysis: precise performance monitoring and campaign optimisation for a better ROI.

Customer relations: the advantages of email over other communication channels

E-mail remains an essential tool for customer relationship management. Discover the six major advantages that set it apart from other communication channels:

Traceability and archiving

E-mail provides an immutable written record of every exchange with your customers. You can easily retrieve past conversations and archive them securely for future reference or for compliance purposes.

Asynchronous communication

No more “all at once” stress! E-mail enables flexible, asynchronous communication. Your customers respond at their own pace, with no pressure or constraints on mutual availability.

Large-scale personalisation

E-mails can be personalised using automation tools.  This allows you to target your messages according to the actions and preferences of each customer, boosting engagement and conversions.

Highly cost-effective

Compared with telephone calls or letters, sending e-mails is much more cost-effective. An ideal solution for businesses, especially for large-scale marketing campaigns.

Easy to share and transfer information

Your customers can easily share your emails with others or post them on social networks. A great way to extend the reach of your message and win new customers.

Accurate impact measurement

You can analyse the success of your email campaigns using key indicators such as open, click and conversion rates. This allows you to optimise your efforts and fine-tune your customer communication strategy constantly.

Is email still essential for interacting with customers?

Does email still dominate customer relations? The figures speak for themselves:

• Internet users’ preferred channel: an SNCD study reveals that 37.4% of Internet users prefer email to follow brand news, far ahead of the website (34.2%) and social networks (7.8%).
• Mass adoption: in 2022 in France, 67% of Internet users have several email addresses, most of whom use their main address to receive commercial offers and to manage their purchases.
• Building loyalty and winning new customers: email is a crucial tool for building customer loyalty (sales offers, purchase tracking) and winning new customers (private sales, newsletters, sales alerts).

What are the alternatives to email for interacting with customers?

Email is still a cornerstone of customer relations, but there are other options for providing the best possible customer experience and meeting the varied needs of customers. Discover the alternatives and their advantages:

Instant messaging and live chat

Real-time interaction: WhatsApp, Facebook Messenger and live chat on websites allow fluid and immediate communication for customers looking for fast assistance.

Social media

Engagement and proximity: Facebook, Twitter, Instagram and LinkedIn offer spaces to interact with customers, respond to their comments and private messages, and create an accessible and engaging presence.

Telephone

Personalised assistance: The telephone remains a preferred channel for customers looking for direct, personalised assistance to solve problems or ask questions.

Online forums and communities

Helping each other and sharing experiences: Creating forums and communities enables customers to ask questions, share experiences and find solutions amongst themselves, thereby fostering engagement and a sense of belonging.

Coping with an influx of customer emails: managing the workload efficiently

Managing a massive influx of customer emails can be a challenge. Here are a number of solutions for optimising customer relations management in such situations:

• Automating responses: automation systems send pre-written responses to frequently asked questions, reducing agents’ workload and improving response time.
• Setting up a queue: emails are organised and processed according to their urgency, ensuring that customers are dealt with fairly.
• Additional recruitment or outsourcing: in cases of heavy and prolonged workloads, it may be necessary to increase the number of staff or outsource the customer service department.
• Using email management software: email management software, such as ticketing systems, enable incoming emails to be tracked, allocated and managed in an organised way, promoting collaboration between team members and ensuring that customer queries are dealt with efficiently.
• Analysing and optimising processes: by analysing the patterns and trends of incoming emails, you can implement preventive solutions and optimise internal processes to reduce the workload.

Outsource your customer email management and boost your customer relations with Procontact

We are much more than a simple contact centre! ProContact is the ideal partner for outsourcing your customer email management with a team of experts providing quality service by responding quickly and professionally to your customers’ emails, according to your instructions.

To get your tailor-made offer, contact us via our contact form or call us on +(33) 1 84 76 24 03