Dealing With Emails

Author: Michelle McCausland
Updated: Loughlin Moore

Note: The below content was written before the Support Request App was introduced but is relevant for times we do have to respond or send an email to the customer. The section on content is valuable advice for updates added in the Ops tickets.

Whether you are dealing with a support request from a customer, reviewing a development item or even communicating with colleagues, emails are a big part of our daily communication.

New recruits should ensure to have their emails reviewed by another member of the support team prior to sending to the customer to ensure all is correct. A new recruit refers to people employed at Errigal for less than 6 months (during probationary period).

It is always important to double check who you are sending emails to before you press send:

• Who is this being sent to - what customer, who else needs to see this email, who does not need to see this email?
• Always include support@errigal.com in the cc field of your emails when dealing with support requests or communicating with the customer.
• Always include the ticket number and name in the subject line where possible. Failing this try to include a clear description of the email.

If you are in anyway unsure about your email before you send it, ask someone to take a quick look at it. A second set of eyes never hurts!

If you are providing lots of information, use paragraphs and bullets for each point of information.
Spread the information out and ensure the information can be understood by the customer or you will receive an email asking for further clarification.

Try to be clear and polite when writing emails to customers:

• If you are asking a question, ensure that it is understandable and has a clear request or call to action for the recipient.
• Specify the systems being referred to when emailing for example: “These changes have now been made on the QA system” or “I have now moved the changes requested to Production”, this eliminates any confusion for the customer.
• If you are emailing the customer regarding specific changes made, ensure that you have double checked the changes have indeed been made and that the customer can see those changes. In a lot of instances, it is quite useful to log in to the applications as a specific user to ensure changes can be seen.

It is important to double check your support work prior to emailing the customer to let them know.

If you are writing to say a report has been moved to production, ensure you have reviewed the report checklist and the report is indeed available on production.

If you are referencing an attached document/file, ensure it is attached to the email.

If you have access, feel free to look at older emails to see how email correspondence is handled in certain situations, this can prove extremely useful.

If you are working on a ticket, it is useful to check for keywords relating to that ticket in your emails to see if a similar problem has arisen before (check the wiki also). This can save you a lot of time.

You should add any email that relates to an existing ticket to the ticket it references. You must use the “Related Email” Form.

• staff@errigal.com - Everyone in the company
• developers@errigal.com - Development team
• ireland@errigal.com - Everyone in the Waterford office
• support@errigal.com - Everyone concerned with support issues

Below you will find a presentation created by Michelle McCausland which outlines the important parts of working with email. Please download the powerpoint and review the material for assistance with creating labels and filters.

Dealing with Emails - Michelle McCausland

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