Don’t Put it in Writing

I get a lot of emails in general, many specifically on the topic of providing good customer service. But this CBS Moneywatch article I stumbled upon, “5 Things You Should Never Put in an Email,” pointed out how, in a time when all of our written communication can be readily blasted to the blogosphere, we may be shooting ourselves in the foot.

I have been on the receiving end of many of the email gaffes outlined in the article. (I have received boilerplate “answers” that did not even approximate a response to my question, for example.)

While large companies respond to thousands of customers a day, we smaller firms can outsmart the big boys by providing customer-facing staffers with some techniques, email and otherwise, to keep customers from making a complaint a public spectacle.