Building User Trust Via E-Mail Notifications

With the rise of cloud services and social media today, it has become easy for digital brands to connect with their customers and potential customers. Today, brands often also use cloud-based tools like email notifications which help them build trust among customers.

Are notifications useful?

Things evolve with time and Email notifications are no exception. Changing their approach, most brands are transforming Email notifications from unwanted or repetitive marketing messages to emails that are explicitly tied to the specific action of users with a website or app. This change in approach makes Email notifications makes receivers perceive as relevant or valuable information that would be interested in knowing. They are no longer something to be dismissed as just spam.

What kind of notifications are not spam?

Security alerts (in the form of automated emails) from services like G-Mail are a relevant example of how users are notified when their G-Mail accounts are accessed from devices with unfamiliar IP Addresses. Such alerts are also received during password changes or Dropbox password breach.

Going beyond security, brands like to engage customers on the basis of their daily activity besides security that includes social life, work, entertainment, and shopping. People indulge in these activities via digital platforms. Thus, it helps to receive constant information from the brands that they are regular customers of. It is easy for customers to keep a track of products and service they are using due to necessity.

E-Mail notification message must be presented as useful else people would get annoyed. There are limited tools to assess the customer’s moods and desire with regards to a marketing message. But no tool guarantees whether the message has been read or not after being opened. Hence, some brands allow customers to choose the topics or products regarding which customers would want notification.

Can customers choose to accept notifications?

Various brands offer people to choose Email or text messages as a medium of notification.Sectors like Banking makes it compulsory for users to subscribe to a notification medium so that tomorrow a customer would not say that he was unaware of the transaction being made from his debit card.

Banks notify customers, every transaction via cheque clearance or ATM transaction. Google offers to push notification about a topic every time a new news or relevant web page is available in its search that user can find relevant. Same thing goes for Facebook and Instagram. When your favorite superstar posts a new picture on Instagram, you would be notified the moment picture gets posted if turn on “notifications” from the profile of that superstar.

With so many notifications and other mail cluttering Inbox, G-Mail and many other mail services offer services like mail search.

Like products and services, can customers give feedback on notifications?

Replying to automated notifications serves no purpose. However, if a customer finds a personalized notification intriguing and replies to it, seeking query or to give a feedback, notification turns into a conversation in no time. Person writing the mail on behalf of brand can then try to convince the customer to continue buying their service and to try the new product or service offered by the brand.

Irrespective of the platform being used for sending notifications, efforts to build trust with customers and attempts to turn them into regular customers start with involving them in the process, for example, by allowing them to choose notifications, and using their feedback loop to make constant improvements.

Some businesses test a variety of opt-in notifications that position information or advertisement with better visibility and less intrusive in nature that customers truly care about. They discover the right balance between communication and disruption. While using online platforms, notifications regarding transactions or delivery spell relief for customers, making them feel that they accomplished what they wanted.

This strengthens their faith in brands using notifications. Going beyond advertising or marketing a product or offering customer service, good as well as relevant notifications offer utility value to customers and fulfill a customer need. Traditional E-Mails may appear to Inbox junk, but cloud services have enabled customers to communicate with brands in a way they find notifications as useful and helpful.

What are your thoughts about Email notifications? Share with us.