E-mail Audit

How can you know—without a doubt—that the e-mails your customers receive are just as effective as phone calls and face-to-face meetings? Is the tone of the message contributing to the positive relationships you want to encourage?

Our E-mail Audit is appropriate for either a sales or customer service area. It’s a quantitative analysis that gives you specific feedback you can use to motivate staff, change direction, or show senior management you’re on the right track.

The foundation of the audit is an analytical system we have used successfully in major corporations for more than two decades. Our method is objective and the results are measurable.

Results

The following graph from one section of a typical E-mail Audit shows you the kind of information you can expect.

Our detailed report provides you with:

• Statistics
• A narrative explanation of our findings
• Graphs illustrating the data
• Specific recommendations
• Suggested revisions of your e-mails

How the E-mail Audit Works

You send us 25 or more of a department’s e-mail messages. We conduct a phone conference to clarify subject matter and identify your customer base. Then, we analyze each message and give you statistics and concrete data evaluating three general categories:

• Customer Focus
• Style and Tone
• Credibility

Evaluation Technique

Each of the three categories is weighted on the basis of its relative impact on the effectiveness of an e-mail to a customer. Within each category, we use at least five weighted criteria to identify the specific characteristics of each e-mail.

The ratings are not scores; they should not be construed as grades. They reflect strictly the degree to which the e-mail messages meet our criteria. An evaluation of 82.2% in the Style and Tone category, for example, is an average of each e-mail’s weighted rating in ten criteria.

For a more detailed discussion of the criteria we use to create an E-mail Audit, read “Music to Their Ears: What Customers ‘Hear’ in Your E-mail,” by Joy Van Skiver, published in Customer Relationship Management magazine in September 2004.

Feedback from Clients

“Thanks for telling us what we’re doing right as    well as what we can improve. You’ve given us    assurance that our e-mails don’t have any      problems with tone.”

“Now we know exactly what to tackle!”

“Your concrete suggestions will help us exceed our customers’          expectations.”

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