In his latest Alertbox post, Jakob Nielsen tests a range of emails, customer service responses and order confirmations.

Transactional emails can be useful for building trust and improving customer service, but many are not as user-friendly as they could be he concludes.

According to Nielsen, while website usability has improved in recent years, the same cannot be said for email:

“Transactional messages continue to exhibit the same amount of usability problems as we saw 5 years ago: vague subject lines continue to dominate, and the body text of many messages continues to be too long.”

Nielsen outlines three goals for transactional emails – avoiding the spam trap, enhancing customer service and trust in the company, and avoiding needless calls by answering common queries.

Here are a few of his tips:

‘From’ field

Internet users get plenty of email, so they are naturally cautious about what they will open. This means that they need to recognise the sender before they will click on a message. Make sure the company / brand name is in the from field.

Subject lines

Also crucial, subject lines need to tell the user that it is not an advertising email in a succinct way. Therefore subject lines like ‘order has shipped’ work well, while ‘important information’ is too vague.

Don’t send too many emails

Customers like to be kept up to date with the progress of their orders, but still don’t need too many emails. Nielsen recommends two: a confirmation of the transaction, and a shipping confirmation with tracking info. No need to send any more than this.

Keep to the point

Start emails with the information customers are looking for. For instance, describe what was ordered and give tracking info in a confirmation email so that it can be easily scanned. Information about how to make contact in case of problems is also useful.

Not even confirming that an order has been placed will often have customers thinking that something has gone wrong, and will probably force a them to call in or email about it.

It boils down to good communication and how different communication styles suit different mediums. Problems occur when the two don’t match, and this is where LS Digital Media’s experience can offer valuable insight.