--- title: Best Practices for Automated Customer Email Notifications description: Email notifications are a powerful tool for communicating key billing and payment information to customers. Here are some rules worth following. image: https://info.blusynergy.com/hubfs/Blog_Images/iStock_000077430015_Large.jpg --- - [About BluSynergy](http://blusynergy.com/about/) - [Developers](http://blusynergy.com/developers/) CALL US TODAY: 731-INVOICE or (731) 468-6423 [![logo.png](https://info.blusynergy.com/hubfs/BluSynergy_May2016/Images/logo.png "logo.png")](http://blusynergy.com) - [Products](https://info.blusynergy.com/#) - [Automated Subscription Billing](http://blusynergy.com/automated-subscription-billing/) - [Invoicing & Payments](http://blusynergy.com/invoicing-payments/) - [Salesforce](http://blusynergy.com/salesforce/) - [Quickbooks](http://blusynergy.com/quickbooks/) - [Oracle](http://blusynergy.com/oracle/) - [SAP](http://blusynergy.com/sap/) - [Netsuite](http://blusynergy.com/netsuite/) - [Customer Insights](http://blusynergy.com/customer-insights/) - [Partners](http://blusynergy.com/partners/) - [Blog](http://blusynergy.com/blog/) - [Contact Us](http://blusynergy.com/contact-us/) - Menu Item 1 - Sub-menu Item 1 - Another Item - Sub-menu Item 2 - Menu Item 2 - Yet Another Item - Menu Item 3 - Menu Item 4 # BluSynergy Blog # Author: ## 11 Feb Best Practices for Automated Customer Email Notifications Posted at 6:30:00 AMh in [email notifications](https://info.blusynergy.com/blog/topic/email-notifications) by [Sunny Thandassery](https://info.blusynergy.com/blog/author/sunny-thandassery) [0 Comments](https://info.blusynergy.com/blog/best-practices-for-automated-customer-email-notifications#comments-listing) - [Tweet](https://twitter.com/share) Most contemporary billing systems have the flexibility to automate customer email notifications in response to a variety of business events. There are many benefits to this for both your business and your customer including improved time to pay, high customer satisfaction, and typically a decrease in calls to customer service. However, email is a very powerful tool and if not handled appropriately and respectfully, can lead to a frustrating experience for your customers.   ![iStock_000077430015_Large.jpg](https://info.blusynergy.com/hs-fs/hubfs/Blog_Images/iStock_000077430015_Large.jpg?width=374&name=iStock_000077430015_Large.jpg "iStock_000077430015_Large.jpg")Here are some rules worth following: #### **Style Is Important** **You want your email to represent you as a company. Not only the tone and style should be consistent with that, but also the visual appearance of the email. Choose a billing platform that will allow you to customer the look and feel of email notifications to fit with the brand your customer recognizes and trusts.  ** #### **Provide Contact Information** **It seems obvious, but not all businesses remember to provide customers a way to contact them. Hitting the REPLY button won’t work if the email is (as it often is) from a “no reply” address but even if it’s not, politeness requires that you share an email address, telephone number and physical address.** #### **Take Steps to Avoid Being Marked as Spam** **There is an enormous amount of spam and phishing scams that put people and their privacy at risk. Those emails may look perfectly legitimate, but there are usually small mistakes that give them away. Including your contact information as outlined in the previous point is one aspect of avoiding the spam button. Another is keeping with brand consistency your customers are used to: logos, fonts, color choices, etc. should all be easily recognizable. This also includes using your company’s email domain for all email communication. For instance, if the name of your company is ABC Software, the emails you send should come from billing@abcsoftware.com.   ** #### **Seamless Integration with Your Customer Self-Service Portal** **It’s always a good idea to provide critical links through which your recipients can quickly [access their account to pay their bill, change their payment method, etc](https://info.blusynergy.com/blog/customer-self-service-portals-what-you-need-to-know). It’s an even better idea if it’s set up so that their own email address (if that’s the access method) is entered into the login automatically when they click on the link. Customers can be irritated when this doesn’t happen – it’s as though they think, “Look, you know who I am – you emailed me. So put my information there.”** #### **Identify Mission Critical Notifications and Alerts** **It is critical that the platform you choose allows you to customize which notifications you want to to enable for your customers and allows you to intelligently override customer preferences when it makes sense for your business. You need to provide customers as much flexibility as possible, but having a customer opt out of overdue or declined payment notifications just doesn’t make sense for your business.   We also recommend looking for more sophisticated options like notifications when credit cards are about to expire or a series of progressively stiffer messaging about overdue invoices.** #### **Respect Their Privacy** **NEVER sell your email list. Customers who receive email from someone they never agreed to hear from may not rest until they find out how that person got their email address. If it turns out to be you, you could lose that customer all together.** #### **Be Concise and to the Point** **Make sure that the email is no longer than it has to be to communicate the key information they’ve requested and are expecting from you. Begin by writing a header that makes the subject of the email absolutely clear, so your customer knows immediately what they can expect when they open the message.** #### **Promote Complementary Products and Services** **Consider mentioning promotions and events that may be coming up. This part can be tricky and we encourage you to ONLY do this if it makes sense and to keep it to a minimum. Don’t let your promotional content overshadow the main reason for the notification email.**   [![New Call-to-action](https://no-cache.hubspot.com/cta/default/463950/3b7390d8-014a-47e7-82f9-ffd64facfe4e.png)](https://cta-redirect.hubspot.com/cta/redirect/463950/3b7390d8-014a-47e7-82f9-ffd64facfe4e) Search Here ### Subscribe to Blog Via Email ### Recent Posts ### Categories - [Insider (2)](https://info.blusynergy.com/blog-test/topic/insider) ### Industries Served - [SaaS Billing](http://blusynergy.com/saas-billing/) - [Data Centers](http://blusynergy.com/data-centers/) - [BPO Billing](http://blusynergy.com/bpo-billing/) - [Training & Educational Institutions](http://blusynergy.com/training-educational-institutions/) - [Internet of Things](http://blusynergy.com/internet-of-things/) ### Resources - [Privacy Policy](http://blusynergy.com/privacy-policy/) - [User Guide](http://docs.blusynergy.com/) - [Developers](http://blusynergy.com/developers/) ### Contact Info 731-INVOICE (731-468-6423) 2650 Valley View Ln - Bldg 1, Suite 200 Dallas, TX 75234 sales@blusynergy.com CALL US TODAY 731-INVOICE or (731) 468-6423