Customer Care via Email — A 1-Day Course

 Closed In-House Course

Course Synopsis

The challenge of meeting internal and external customers' expectations requires the ability to perceive customer requirements and respond appropriately.

When much of the work is done via e-mail, clear concise communication using this media is imperative to give a professional image of the organisation.

When you write an e-mail, you are not only communicating information to another person - you are presenting yourself, in writing. People judge you not only for the accuracy and completeness of your written communications, but also for the 'way it is put across'.

The course is designed to help participants develop a fluent style of writing, to help overcome common difficulties with e-mail writing, and to inspire confidence in producing professional e-mails.

Anyone who uses e-mail as their primary communication tool with internal or external customers will benefit from attending this course.

Course Objectives

On completion of this training course, delegates will have learned how to:

• Agree what a professional response to an e-mail should look like and contain
• Identify your barriers and strengths when communicating via e-mail
• State the importance of using plain English and the Plain English Campaign
• Demonstrate a systematic approach to written communication - using the four block structure
• Discuss and review the use of appropriate grammar, punctuation and spelling
• Practise avoiding the use of too many words, clichés and jargon
• Identify the effectiveness of using positive language and powerful words and phrases
• Examine ways of avoiding emotional responses
• Establish the customers preferred style and match it using words that will help the customer feel valued from your response
• Demonstrate composing a range of correspondence with fluency and style
• Critically review your own work and edit it accordingly

Outline Course Contents

Establish personal objectives for the course

Personal assessment of strengths and improvement areas

What a business e-mail should look like and contain

Appraisal of sample business e-mails

Organisational e-mail standards

Writing in plain language and the Plain English campaign

The four block structure

Basic grammar, punctuation and spelling

Reducing the number of words

Recognising and reducing business clichés

Using active sentence construction

How readers read and the fog index

Setting the appropriate tone

Matching language preferences

E-mail writing practise

Completion of a personal action plan