How to Improve Customer Experience using Transactional Emails?

With technological advancements, many alternatives are present to reach out to customers such as- chatbots and social media. Even though these alternatives have produced outstanding results, marketers cannot deny the power of email marketing. By producing 3800% ROI, Email Marketing is one of the most effective ways to reach out to your customer. The best thing about email is that it empowers you to communicate with your subscribers directly. Also, the chances of missing the email are comparatively less than the other mediums.

One of the most effective types of emails that result in better customer engagement is the transactional email. Transactional emails are automatically triggered by the subscriber’s actions such as-

  • subscribing to a website
  • making a purchase
  • raising an issue, etc.

Transactional emails result in 8x more open rates and click rates and 6x more revenue when compared to any other type of email. – Experian

With extremely informative email copy that is related to the subscriber’s recent actions, transactional emails are hardly left unattended by the subscribers. Transactional emails can also help you improve your customer’s experience. Considering the fact, you can include transactional emails in your email marketing strategy to enhance your customer relationship.

9 Most Effective Transactional Emails Tips to Enhance Customer Experience with your Business

Customer experience holds immense importance in customer retention for a business. The probability of existing customers making a purchase is 60-70%, which is more than the new ones. Hence, companies need to nurture their existing customers effectively and keep them informed to retain them.

A transactional email can be beneficial in this. Transactional emails can keep the subscriber hooked on so that they always look forward to it. These emails keep the subscribers informed and guide them to get through a process. Transactional emails can be included at numerous stages of the customer’s journey –

  • When they subscribe.
  • Order confirmation
  • Shipping details
  • Raising an issue
  • Password reset

Including transactional emails can be extremely beneficial for your business. However, you should be cautious about what information you are feeding to your customer. Irrelevant content can result in losing your customer. Hence, to enhance your customer’s experience, make sure you follow the below guidelines while crafting your emails.

  1. Deliver Relevant Information

    The foremost thing that is important for every transactional email, is the content that it carries. The core idea of the transactional email is conveying information to the customers related to the action performed by them. Hence your email should carry relevant information about the event. Inaccurate details tend to annoy the customer, preventing future purchases.

    For example- Let’s say, you are sending an order confirmation email to a customer. Make sure the customer details such as shipping address and order information are accurate and relevant.

    Etsy Email(Image Source: Really Good Emails)

    In the email example above by Etsy, all the relevant information is present in the email including:

    • Call to action to view the order
    • A photo and details of the product
    • The Shipping address and pricing
    • Shipping Details
    • A FAQ section related to the business
  2. Update About Transaction Status

    Sometimes, few transactions happen to be left incomplete due to some circumstances. In such cases, always update your customers about transaction status, so that they could take appropriate action accordingly.

    Let’s say if a customer initiates a purchase of a product. However, being out of stock, the customer has to leave the transaction incomplete. You can update your customer about the availability of the product so that he could purchase it.
    Nic+Zoe email

    (Image Source: LiveClicker)

  3. Recommend Related Products

    When someone makes a purchase, the conversation ends there. To keep the customer engaged, you need to keep the conversation alive. You can tell your customers about the upcoming sales and offers on the product and services to keep them engaged.

    Another way is to suggest related products based on the customers’ past purchases.

    For Example, Amazon recommends books similar to the purchased books, within the order details email.


    (Image Source: Medium)

  4. Try to Connect with Your Customers

    Though the main objective of a business is to sell products/services and make a profit, you should think beyond just doing business. A customer wishes to stay with you only if they are served well according to their interest and needs. Instead of just directly selling your product, you should try to connect with your customer.

    Your email should reflect your concern for your customers, making them feel taken care of. Try to support your customer, offering to assist them in all their problems and needs. This gains their confidence in your brand, leading to better customer retention.

    For Example, Black Rock, a holiday resort, crafts their transactional email very creatively. Along with the booking details, the email content has a warmth to it that reflects the concern for the customers.

    (Image Source: Litmus)

  5. Enhance Brand Recognition using transactional emails

    Always focus on enhancing your brand recognition. For a business, it is important that the customer remembers and considers your brand for their future purchases when the need arises.

    To do so, you can embed your brand logo in the transactional emails. Every time a customer opens the email, he comes across the logo and hence remembers it. This also provides credibility to your emails and the customer considers it authentic.

    For instance, Reddit includes its brand logo in the transactional emails and creates brand awareness among the users.

    (Image Source: Campaign Monitor)

  6. Analyze and Optimize Your Email Performance

    Email campaigns always have a scope of improvement. To send better emails to your customers, email performance can be the hand on the pulse of customer preferences. Assess your email performance periodically and based on it make changes to your email content and optimize the campaign performance.

    You can also ask the customers for their feedback within the transactional email. Based on the feedback, you can optimize your email content and serve your customers effectively. Like Amazon asks for customer’s feedback in their transactional email.

    (Image Source: EmailMarketingTipps)

  7. Follow the 80/20 Rule

    Make sure you follow the 80/20 rule in your transactional email. The purpose of a transactional email needs to be 80% transactional and only 20% promotional. This approach makes the email more informative as well as productive.

    Amazon drops a transactional email providing the shipping information of the purchased product. 80% of the email provides information about the shipping as well as the product detail. 20% of the email is used to promote products related to purchase. The promotion attracts customers to make further purchases.


    (Image Source: Litmus)

  8. Personalize Your Transactional Emails the Right Way

    “I don’t want email, I want me-mail.” – Seth Godin

    The statement says quite a lot about the importance of email personalization. A customer never likes to be treated as an unknown name in an email list, despite purchasing products from your company. They expect to be treated the same way when they purchase from a brick and mortar store, i.e a familiar way. They want you to study them and understand their needs.

    Personalization in your transactional email can bring a huge difference to your customer’s experience. There are numerous way in which you can personalize your transactional emails-

    • Include the first and last names of the customers.
    • Icons related to gender and age.
    • Information about the relevant offers.
    • Special discount coupons on previously viewed items.

  9. Delight your Customers

    You can also delight your customers with your transactional emails. You can send thanksgiving emails or tell them about exclusive offers. These elements in the emails tend to help delight your customer and engage them further. This makes them feel special, thereby improving their experience.

    (Image Source: Pinterest)

Key Take-Aways

The overall attention span has reduced considerably, so customers tend to switch their interest very soon. So, your transactional email needs to keep reminding them about your brand. The quality of the product is essential to mark your presence. However, it cannot promise a long-lasting relationship with your customer.

For a long-lasting relationship and customer retention, a company needs to take care of their customer’s journey. You should make sure that your customer should never be left unattended. Guide and serve them through every step of their journey.

To achieve this, transactional email proves to be extremely helpful. The article covers the most effective tips that can help you through the process. However, if you need guidance, reach out to the experts, who will help you craft your email creatively and add value to your customer’s experience.

Related Articles

  1. How to Improve Customer Retention Using Email Marketing?
  2. Using Email marketing with other Marketing Channels for Better ROI
  3. Data-Driven Email Marketing: How to use Customer Data Innovatively
  4. Steps To Increase Email Marketing Conversion Rates