A huge amount of our communication with our customers happens via email. We email contracts, catering menus, and loads of other details every day. It's easy to get lazy with email, especially when you're cranking out a bunch of emails every day. Sometimes we get emails back from clients and they clearly do not understand what we were trying to tell them.

When we look back at those emails, we often discover that we really did a pretty lame job of organizing our thoughts and writing a coherent message. Sending a confusing email to a client is straight up poor customer service. So we are putting a new practice into place: whenever we have a longer, more detailed email to send, we will write it up and save it as a draft. Then we'll either have a teammate proof it, or let it sit for a while and then re-read it again to see if it make sense or if we can clarify the information in any way.

Why this is one of our favorite sparks:
Communication is a huge component of service. We can't overlook basic principles of clarity and organization in this area. We have to take special care to make sure email is well written because it's a one-way medium that can easily be misunderstood. This is a more advanced way to look at customer service, too, which tells us we're evolving in our thinking about how we can serve our customers better and better.


Have you ever received a totally confusing email from someone you do business with? How did you resolve it? Tell us your story.