The document provides guidance on proper email etiquette. It discusses including a clear subject line, greeting, concise body, and closing in emails. The email body should have a clear purpose. Common mistakes to avoid include omitting Oxford commas, hedging language, overly long or unclear copy, being too casual or formal, using cliches, and repetition. Maintaining a balance of formality and keeping the message concise are emphasized.
1. Customer support agents being able to frame the conversation in a positive manner
is one of the most important live chat etiquettes. While handling chats, agents should
also be cheerful and polite as it is not only about resolving a query, but also about
the right way it is done
2. Etiquette for live chat success
Are you prepared
Conversing with customer
Welcome greetings
Set a positive tone
Empathize your customer
Humanize your live support
Never keep customers waiting
Reduce response time
Canned Responses For Faster Replies
Right interpersonal skills
Grammar & spellings
Never leave your customers
unanswered
Wrap up
Feedback
3. You want to offer exceptional customer service. You know that good customer service
leads to benefits for your business like a loyal customer base, and customers who
leave great reviews. And if you’re offering, or thinking of offering live chat customer
support, you’re probably already aware of the benefits such as high customer
satisfaction, and reduced customer support costs.
But what happens when you don’t offer good customer service? Bad customer service
can lead to frustrated and dissatisfied customers, negative reputation for your
business, and lots of lost customers. In the examples above, these live chat agents
simply didn’t observe some of the general rules of live chat etiquette, or even general
customer service etiquette.
Do you want to avoid ending up like them?
4. • Feel good about your work
• Have a positive attitude
• Make sure your Computer & Headset are working fine
• Be prepared with the tools/props relates to process
• Reverse your attitude towards work – Observe the daily
updates without fail
5. RESPECT Be respectful to the customer (Customer
service is like a mirror if caller felt unrespectable same
will be given to agent)
POLITENESS Be genuinely polite in your tone. Let the
customer “hear” politeness in your voice
PATIENCE Be patience with the customers and do
not sound rude, annoyed (irritated) or abrupt
(unexpected)
TONE & ENTHUSIASM Remember to maintain
enthusiasm and excitement in your tone
6. Welcome greetings are one of the most effective ways of engaging and
converting your website visitors. A well-timed greeting message can be a great
way to engage your audience and deliver a better experience
3 major goals of Onboarding messages
• Welcome the customer and guide them to learn about the next set of actions
• Give them a touchpoint if they have any questions
• Provide customers with self service options to learn themselves
Set up a nice tone for your brand in the welcome messages for customers. A friendly
conversational tone encourages users to read all your messages
Build an emotional connection with your customers by introducing yourself to show
new customers there’s a real person behind your product.
Send chat greeting messages based on demography. For example, France – Bonjour
“name of the customer” Comment puis-je vous aider means Hello ‘customer name’
how may I help you)
7. Customer support agents being able to frame the conversation in a
positive manner is one of the most important live chat etiquettes.
You should use empathetic statements that make your customers feel
that you are able to understand their journey and feelings
POSITIVE PHRASES:
Please don’t hesitate….
Please note that …..
Let me check this for you, one moment, please
NEGATIVE PHRASES:
Do not say NO directly.
Go to our website and find out
Avoid using – I think/I feel/I believe instead say
“There might be an issue here, let me check this”.
8. Possibly, the best thing you can do is to acknowledge how your customer feels. When
you try to connect with their pain or struggles, it makes them feel supported. It shows
that you are genuinely putting effort to understand their feelings
“I am sorry you are going through this
“Oh! That sounds really challenging.”
“I can understand how that would be difficult.”
“I can imagine what you must be going through.”
“I wish I could make it better.”
“It makes me really sad to hear this happened.”
“Thank you so much for notifying us about the issue.”
“We are grateful for sharing your opinions with us. It will surely
benefit our company.”
9. Have you ever wondered that your customers might get a feeling
that they are talking to a bot?
It happens frequently that customers end up with the feeling that the
conversation was robotic. The key reason behind this is that the
support agents fail to give the human touch while handling the chats.
• Rightly use the canned messages while handling customer
conversations.
• Develop an emotional connection with customers with personalized
communication.
Missing out on the human touch can have a negative impact on your
business from losing customers to dissatisfaction. So, adding a
human touch to the chat conversions is the important chat etiquette
tips that every business should follow.
10. When we talk about live chat, the lesser the response time the
higher is the customer service.
“More than 30% of customers expect live chat on your website.” They grow
impatient and get irritated if they fail to connect with the support agent in real
time. Many customers will abandon their purchase if they don’t get an instant
answer right away! - FORRESTER
The best way to win the hearts of your customers is to close their
cases in the first contact itself, without having them have to come
back multiple times and go over the same questions again
11. During peak hours, many businesses struggle to deliver real time responses that are the
main reason why customers abandon, they expect faster solutions else leave being
frustrated.
• Agents should promptly identify the matter and provide effective
solutions much faster
• Sufficient resources onboard to manage conversations effectively
& focus First Response Time (FRT) and maintains the service
quality.
12. Customers also don’t like to wait. They expect an effective response for their
query in real-time. Rightly developed canned responses can help in
handling customer’s problem effectively and quickly.
• We have received your message and we are working on it.
• We are still working on your case. We will update you soon.
• Your problem has been resolved.
• Were you happy with the resolution?
Canned replies can maximize a customer support team’s efficiency to
smoothly handle multiple chat sessions and balance the response time
efficiently
Canned responses are predefined answers or messages for the frequently
asked questions typically for queries related to sales, customer support, or
marketing. They are used to engage customers better during an ongoing
conversation to deliver a faster & consistent response
13. When you interact with customers, it is important that you be able to
relate to others on a personal level. The customer should feel as if
they are interacting with someone who genuinely cares and wants to
solve their problem.
Active Listening: Listening attentively to the customers should be
the chat etiquette at work. One main reason why businesses receive
a large number of customer complaints is just about the fact that
agents do not “listen” to them. The information collected can be
passed to the teams across respective business teams to implement
it.
Be empathetic: Dealing with the mood of your customers is an art.
Show your artistic beauty in handling customer complaints and
angry customers. By using the right empathy statements you show
your ability to “walk a mile in someone else’s shoes”
14. Customers face problems in understanding technical terms. It’s an important chat guideline
that you make them understand in layman term & avoid jargon (meaningless talk or writing;
gibberish. any talk or writing that one does not understand). You should focus on using simple
and precise questions. It always helps to locate the issue instantly and resolve it
Control over abbreviations, ellipses, emojis personalizes the chat
conversations and eases the situations where a word can be negatively
interpreted
PROTIPS
• Avoid using ALL CAPS sentences for a chat. Ideally, capitalized sentences stand
for shouting so using capital words may give a commanding or rude feeling
• Chat conversations with customers are going at a pace, so abbreviations should
be used in the right place and time. Excess use of abbreviates shows you are
not an active person
15. When customers contact you, they expect you to provide a quick
and effective solution to them. But there might be times when you
do not have a relevant answer or solution and that is normal
By using positive phrases like “ Please give me a minute. I’ll quickly
find this out for you”. Trust me! It won’t reveal that you are helpless.
Rather it will show your effort to help and take care of the problem
• It is better to take some time and provide the right information instead of
providing an irrelevant answer instantly. Following the latter one can risk
your brand credibility, which is a great loss
• When you tell customers that you need some time, make sure that you
update them within that time frame. It leaves a good impression and
customers appreciate your professional chat etiquette
16. Closing the conversations is vital as you as a business are
expressing your delight of getting a chance to serve them
and pay gratitude for choosing you
By saying positive statements like – “Thank you for
choosing us, We hope you are satisfied with our service.”,
“ It was a great opportunity for us to serve you. Please
feel free to contact us in the future.”
17. Customer feedback is very important for every business. One of the
best ways to know about customer satisfaction is through feedbacks.
Feedbacks provide valuable insights that can help to enhance your
business
Asking feedback from customers and acting on it is an important live
chat etiquette guidelines and a key factor that determines business
growth. Feedbacks help to transform your brand products and
services to gel with the needs of your customers.
You can ask feedback from customers right after:
• The end of a chat session – When the live chat session completes
you can ask customers to give feedback about their chat experience
• When service request ends – You can ask for feedback to your
customers after you meet your customer service request
18. To write a great email, you need to know two things:
common mistakes to avoid, and next-level strategies to
get ahead.
But first things first—you have to know what a great
email looks like if you’re going to write one
ANATOMY OF A GOOD EMAIL
Every email has the same basic structure: Subject line,
greeting, email body, and closing. But as with every written
form of professional communication, there’s a right way to do
it and standards that should be followed.
19. SUBJECT LINE
The subject line could be the most important
part of the email
Subject line can entice [attract or tempt]
people to open the message as well as set
expectations about what’s enclosed
A poorly crafted or generic subject line (like
“Hi” or “You don’t wAnt to miss thos”) can
deter [discourage] the reader
GREETINGS
In most emails, you’ll want to include a quick
greeting to acknowledge the reader before
diving into your main message or request.
The exception: When you’re on an email
chain with close colleagues, it often becomes
more natural to drop the opener (as well as
the closing).
Though it may initially feel like a faux pas
[embarrassing], it signals a better professional
rapport.
20. EMAIL BODY
The body of an email is the meat of your
message, and it must have a clear and
purpose.
It should also be concise [brief but
comprehensive]
People will be more inclined [sloping] to read
it, rather than skimming [reading quickly] it
and risking missing critical information
“Nobody wants to receive a novel. You want
to keep it between three, four, or five lines of
text”.
CLOSING
Just as you want to start things off on the
right foot with your greeting, you also want to
part well.
That means writing a friendly sign-off. And
there are plenty of options to choose from.
21. Just as every email is an opportunity for professional growth, there’s
also the potential to fall into common bad habits. Here are eight
mistakes to avoid
Omitting necessary Oxford commas
Hedging [trimming]
Extremely long and/or unclear copy
Being too casual (or formal)
Cliches
Repetition
22. The Oxford comma can be somewhat polarizing [partially], depending on which style guide is
utilized for professional communications
A lot of people have strong opinions about it. But leaving them out can lead to confusion,
depending on the sentence
What to do instead: While the Oxford comma may not be suitable in certain contexts, it’s
usually a good idea to use them in emails. That’s because it can help you save time and avoid
miscommunication, confusion, and even legal trouble
Furthermore, a run-on sentence occurs when you don’t put a comma when connecting two
Incorrect: After I finished my work I went out for a break
Correct: After I finished my work, I went out for a break
23. Grammarly users know that when it comes to hedging, it’s better to omit it than leave it in,
especially in emails
Contrary [disagree] to popular belief, hedging language makes you sound less confident,
which can ultimately undermine your writing
What to do instead: State your idea or opinion, then explain the “why” behind your
reasoning. That way, you’ll be better understood and your brilliance can shine through
Examples:
Incorrect: The lives they chose may seem overly ascetic and self-denying to most women
today.
Correct: The lives they chose seem overly ascetic and self-denying to most women today.
24. Probably most people skim emails that are on the long side. And if you add
hard-to-follow sentences or mixed messages, to your draft, you’re even less
likely to get a satisfactory response. (Or any response.)
What to do instead: Keep it concise and focus on the matter at hand. Then
end with a call to action, a requested response date, and make it clear that
you’re open to questions and follow-ups (if that’s the case).
On next page let’s have a reference of Proper and Improper email
25.
26. Wavering too much to the casual or formal side of writing can be a misstep
Being overly casual is often seen as a rookie [new recruit] mistake, but stiff, formal language can
also be detrimental [tending to cause harm] to your message
What to do instead: In striking the perfect balance between formal and casual, the key is
thinking about the relationship between yourself and the recipient and take social cues as your
communication progresses
On next page let’s have a reference of Proper and Improper email
27.
28. Not all email cliches are cardinal sins [deadly sins of Catholic Church].
Certain aspects of your emails are bound to be a little formulaic[containing a set form of
words].
Most emails have the same basic structure, and there are phrases that you may use to ensure
clarity or cover your bases. But if you’re going to repeat phrases, make sure they have a clear
purpose.
What to do instead: Try reading the draft for cliches, tone,
and voice to more effectively communicate your message
while keeping the reader engaged.
29. People often repeat words within the same paragraph, twice in two sentences, or just too
close together to go unnoticed. While it’s not the worst offense, it’s another thing that can
make a reader tune out
Here are the most commonly repeated words to avoid:
What to do instead: Try reading your draft out loud,
using the text-to-speech function on your phone, or
running it by a colleague before sending it off.
Grammarly can also help you catch these repeated or
overused words.