Simple customer service E-mails
by Andrew Smith on 14/05/07 at 9:41 am
5 comments
We received this mail from Cybersmart, our new ADSL service provider:
Hi
You only have 1.38 Gigs left and at the rate you are going, you will run out in 8 days on the 18th of this month. We suggest that you buy more Gigs for this month by going to http://www.cybersmart.co.za/topup.cgi (You can reach this link at a later stage by going to http://www.cybersmart.co.za and clicking the "topup link" at the bottom of the page.) To get a daily breakdown of your usage go to http://www.cybersmart.co.za/getAccountDetails.cgi or alternatively, go to http://www.cybersmart.co.za and click on the "adsl usage" link.
We will warn you again when you exceed 75% of your total Gigs AND it still looks like you will run out of Gigs before the end of the month. Please note that unless there is a problem with your adsl line you will ALWAYS be able to get to our website so that you can topup even if your Gigs are finished.
iBurst used to send a daily usage report, but because it came every day I usually ignored it. I really like that the Cybersmart mail has a simple calculation telling you when you are projected to run out of bandwidth. Then they give simple instructions for buying more bandwidth. And they tell you when the next reminder will come, and re-assure you that you will always be able to top-up through their website.
This simple mail is a great example of basic technology (I could hire a programmer to knock up the script which generates this for under R200) that pushes all the right customer service buttons.
Andrew Smith is the pedantic systems guy behind Live Alchemy, a SA e-commerce company. Andrew writes for Ideate in an attempt to make the world a more efficient place. View more articles by Andrew Smith.
CmdrDats
May 14th, 2007
I received the same. Was very impressed! Such a simple, yet extremely effective mechanism, why doesn’t everybody do this?
Grant Pierrus
May 14th, 2007
Great idea! I will most definitely be getting my marketing staff to start working on something like this.
Programmers
May 14th, 2007
Yes it is small additions like these and attention to details that will keep the customers happy for a long time
David
May 16th, 2007
WebAfrica has a similar thing – Not the fancy “you have 8 days left” calculation, but you can opt to get e-mails or SMS when you are 500MB / 1GB from your limit… You can also choose to enable “Auto Top-up” where your bandwidth is automatically topped up when you run low…
milo
Jul 27th, 2007
Go to http://www.thencb.co.za to have a look at a company which presents you the service of solving these issues on your behalf.