Crisis happens.

Despite the best intentions of a business. 

When this happens, you can’t let the customer/client satisfaction level drop too low or you risk losing them. 

And churn is the worst. 

The kind of emails you send when something unexpected happens will show your subscribers whether you care or not. 

Today, I’m reviewing the emails from two businesses that were sent during a period when they could not provide certain services due to an incident that wasn’t primarily their fault. 

A little back story for this is last year, some undersea cables were damaged. This led to internet outages in parts of West and South Africa. 

My country, Nigeria was one of the affected countries and bank customers who relied on Internet banking couldn’t carry out transactions. 

Two banks, Zenith and FCMB sent emails to inform their subscribers about this incident. However, only one nurtured their audience the right way. 

Here is the video:

This is the summary of the review:

Goodies

1, Empathy is everything.

Although this was not their fault, FCMB’s email offered an apology, expressed concerns for the problems caused by the service outage, and got ahead of the problem from the get-go.

In essence, they called they called themselves out by taking responsibility. 

2, When you can’t fix it, provide an alternative. 

After acknowledging that Internet banking was paused, they offered a couple of solutions. 

This proved that they were committed to the comfort of their customers. 

3, Use a sequence to keep people informed of any development. 

Especially the positive ones. 

Once service was restored, FCMB sent an email informing customers that Internet banking was back in operation. 

They took their time to tell their customers that they do give a f**k. 

4. Keep it plain.

Aside from customary branding, emails like this are best sent plain. 

It helps the reader focus on what is important —the information you are passing. 

And it passes along the message of contrition. Both banks did this in their email so go them!!!🎉

Uglies

1, Lack of personalization. 

In Zenith’s emails, there was an impersonal approach to the information that was shared. 

I talked about this in last week’s email review. 

My name wasn’t mentioned and it felt more like an infomercial. 

2, Lack of empathy and warmth.

No apology was offered in this email. 

There were also no alternative solutions which left me puzzled. 

If you’re going to send emails during a crisis, do a good job of it. 

3, No follow-up email.

While FCMB sent a second email (essentially turning it into a sequence) to inform customers that the services had been restored, Zenith only sent one email.

Informing your customers about current events could help them build trust in your brand. 

Remember moments in between sales periods can either build or demolish brand loyalty. 

See you at the next one. 

Do you need to spot and plug money-leaking, client-shedding holes in your email marketing funnel without the anxiety brought on by guesswork? I can help. Let’s talk!