Relationship management is a time-consuming process. And in the bustle of outgoing communication, we can often leave incoming communications to something that is more suited for automated, process-based responses: computerized systems. But PHP-Bob and his dull, generic responses to emails tend to turn off hopeful customers. Think of all the people who talk about what great service they were getting from a cable company before they had a problem and got walked-through a repair by an automated system. Often, it’s a relationship-breaker.

There is a need for these systems in large corporations. When you deal with a million or more clients in a day, you don’t have a million or more employees to handle individual requests. So you weed out the insignificant questions with menus, automated messages and computerized response systems. But small business has no use for these things, and could be hurting their business by using them.

Emails are the most commonly overlooked form of relationship-driven correspondence. Often, an email must be impersonal to remove liabilities in interpretation. That doesn’t mean you are a robotic servicing unit incapable of common sense, real conversations and perhaps a bit of humor now and then.

For any small business handling under 150 incoming general email requests (customer service, complaints, comments or sales), consider sourcing out the response work if you don’t have time. To do this correctly and with relationships in mind, you need 5 things:

  1. A dedicated email address that is not a forwarder; you need to make sure incoming and outgoing email are handled by your domain name, not by a Gmail account. Spam filters don’t like replies from servers that don’t match the email address. Give this person a username and password they have to access, but require them to leave all emails on the server.
  2. A knowledge base that describes how you handle different aspects of your business. This could just be a Word document, but works best if it’s searchable, like a content management system (CMS) with searchable documents (you should invest in this anyway to share information across departments; common systems are free).
  3. A request process for the contractor that tells him or her how to get answers when needed and how emails requiring response from a specific department are handled.
  4. A tracking program – either a call log (Excel sheet, database or call log software with email option) or a customer relationship manager (CRM) system – where inquiries can be tracked, counted and reviewed.
  5. A contractor that can employ a company’s persona when writing correspondence.

Pay your cloud commuter based on emails handled. An hourly position would probably be almost minimum wage, but some workers would be okay with a per-email fee, like $2 per email. Using the call log or CRM under a specific campaign will be enough to show what emails were responded to when. If they don’t record it, they don’t get paid. Once a quarter, you should also do an audit to compare number of emails to number of recorded emails handled. If they don’t match, you may want to have a talk with your contractor. For this reason, include a chargeback option in your contractor agreement if your audits show the contractor was overpaid.

As with everything, the process is a test at first. If you don’t see any benefit in time saved by your employees, scrap it. If you are spending more than the extra revenue your relationships are generating, scrap it… with one caveat: you should have a goal for your relationship development, and anything that hinders you from achieving that goal should be changed or avoided.

Your emails should be personable. If a client makes a joke in their email, mention how you’ll have to write that one down. Be careful when making jokes back, but most people who have any writing experience can weave small bits of humor into a conversation. Nothing off-color (or about color, for that matter)! Just cute little jokes here and there:

“Mr. Smith, I completely understand where you are coming from. Dealing with construction companies who do not respond to you in a timely manner can be frustrating. It probably feels like waiting for the bathroom but people keep cutting in line in front of you; you never really know when it’s your turn. We don’t want that, as I am sure you don’t. Here’s how we can solve this communication problem…”

Well, for some, that may be a stretch, but I know plenty of people who would get that better than, “We apologize for the inconvenience. Please be patient.” Make sure you get a feel for your client before you send them humor.

Bottom line: show consumers you are not a robot. crowdSPRING is great at this; their newsletters sound like conversations between college buddies and their web site copy is very casual without being rude. They will need to change their wording when looking for a government contract, but for the general consumer their lingo is inviting and no-nonsense. Whatever it takes to keep them in a positive relationship with you is going to improve your customer investment and, ultimately, your company’s viability.

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