The key to a successful customer success email is (which would mean the receiver opened it, read it, and took some action) sending an email with the right intent at the right time. Especially in SaaS, where all success is perceived and not apparent, one cannot emphasize the importance of customer success emails. But sadly, most SaaS businesses scramble for customer acquisition and then have lame or nil post-signup email strategy in place to continue the customer’s journey with their product or service.

Most companies often err on two things: Not sending enough emails and sending too many emails.

But given that email marketing has a big hand in acquisition, retention, driving new trials, and increasing paid conversions, it pays to get your customer success email strategy on point immediately.

You must email people to help them get value out of your product, you must email them to make them feel valued and part of your milestone successes, you must email them exclusive offers, discounts to keep them from churning.

These days, in many organizations, CSMs are tasked with acting as a project manager not just for onboarding and implementation but also for customer projects throughout a company. Therefore, emailers are often automated responses to queries and other actions that customers take on the site.

Yes, automation is efficient, ensures a response reaches every customer promptly and saves time for the customer success personnel. But how personal are the automated emails?

Everything from the subject line to how you address the customer to the content of the mail to how you sign off matters. One of the above points could be the difference between an unopened mail, the customer hitting unsubscribe, or opening it and feeling valued.

Then, the million-dollar question is how to draft email templates that do not look like hasty cut-paste jobs. Are you aware of what your TC wants in terms of communication from you? Is the information you share in the customer success mails attractive enough to make the customer click-through? What are the important emails to be sent to a customer? And how to personalize each of them?

The following points will answer these questions and help you maximize customer retention and boost trial-to-paid conversions apart from slashing churn. Here you go… those important customer success email templates and what they should contain:

Account registration email

This is the first interaction the customer will have with you after the sale is through, and also, in a way, with your email system. This makes a registration and account activation email an especially important communication.

While it needs to be cheery and informative (giving the key resources to log in and begin to use your product/service), every customer expects an activation email to be business-like – maybe with a verification code included, to make them feel secure.

It reminds them that they have signed up and can log in now. This email should be sent almost immediately once the customer signs up. A perfect example would be the template below:

Welcome email

This should be a clear, concise email to help the customer get started with your service or product. An attachment answers a few key FAQs about the product and handholds the customer through the preliminary setup phase. Add hyperlink inviting the customer to know more about your organization and products list and a link to all the features of your product so that he knows what all he will get if he were to upgrade. This will help in conversion.

If your registration mail contains all the above details (as it does in some cases), use the welcome mail as a kind of a ‘check in’ with the customer to ensure he is not experiencing any hiccups in using your product. In this customer success email template, you could add personalized anecdotes of customer success and keep it warm, addressing the customer by name. Check out the template below:

Onboarding Kick Off Email Templates

It is needless to say that customer onboarding is a crucial step in the customer journey. It is during this stage where you as a CSM would require a variety of templates for different tasks and triggers that you will create for the customers. The first one is to kick off the onboarding journey.

Here is a template that you can use during such cases.

Hi First Name

We are delighted to inform that your SmartKarrot instance is ready. Please find your access credentials and API key information in the paragraphs below.

It is really a pleasure to work with you and bring you on board!

Thanks again for the opportunity. Let us do this!

Onboarding Kickoff
This email is an invitation for an onboarding kickoff call this week depending on your availability.
Agenda
Introduction to your xxxxxxxxxxxxxIntroduction to xxxxxxxxxxx Sign off on the Onboarding Plan————————————-
Access Credentials (enabled for xxxxx)
URL: xxxxxxx
Login: 
Password: xxxxxxx

API Key
To acquire the API key, you will be required to log in. You can get the API Key under xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx

Technical Resources
You can also search for the resources for your tech team in case they wish to review.

 
A Premier Guide to get started for Customer Success and Product Manager
Getting Started Guide for Developer
APIs and Javascript Library
Knowledge base
Success and Support Contact

We will ensure that you and your team achieve your objectives. If you have any doubts, please use the following mediums to contact us:

Phone: xxxxxxxxx
Live Chat: It is now possible for you to live chat from within the product (when available) Email: xxxxxxxxxx

Cheers!

Pro tip email

The true-blue handholding mail. Everyone needs a bridge over troubled waters sometimes – customers included. And nothing makes customers happier than receiving value at no cost. So, send them emails with pro tips occasionally – it could be about the new features you have added or a video to some skills that will enhance their successful usage of your product, maybe a link to a landing page that gives a free video course with no strings attached.

Remember how happy you get when your smartphone announces a software upgrade? Though most of us never clearly know what enhancements it makes to our phones, we feel we have added something great to our phones, right? Ditto for pro-tip emails! Make it look like the one below to get great opening rates!

Educational email

Let us understand, not everyone who signs up for your product is a tech pro! An educational email helps a newbie user take that leap to join your powered, seasoned user confidently. And you never know, he might upgrade! So, this email should list all the major features with explanations to help the newbie user identify the milestones he needs to take advantage of your product.

Again, you could value-add to this email with exclusive for-you-only links to audio/video courses, interviews with industry experts, etc. You can even offer to set up a weekly session for online issues-crushing meetings at no extra cost. An email like the one below will nudge the customer into active user mode and subsequently help retention and degradation.

Trial reactivation email

Timing is key here. Send this email too early, and you risk irking the customer; wait too long, and he might drop off thinking you are not interested in him. So, if you have a trial period, it is a calculated strategy to send them a reminder halfway through with an activation link.

You could attach a generous ‘exclusive’ offer with it if you plan it well. It will act as an incentive for trial users to upgrade to paid customers. You could even add a demo schedule link to show how much you care about your users achieving desired outcomes and how your customer service will be with them throughout their journey with you.

Note: At times, it might be so that a certain potential customer has not even availed of your trial offer, despite signing up for it. For such customers, sending a trial reactivation email is a great idea. It can show the user you are still keen to work together and help attract inactive users back to your customer fold. Something like Canva did:

The upgrade email

One of the most important SaaS customer success email templates! The incentive email to upgrade can be a tricky one. Maybe that’s the reason most SaaS sales and CSM do not optimally use this to their advantage.

Look at it this way – if you are offering a 15-day free trial and the customer has found value on the fifth day, why not ask them to upgrade without delay. But the question is, how do you figure out when the customer is ready to upgrade.

Well, you could start with those who have already clicked on all the key activation events across your product. These emails should tell the customer how upgrading immediately will be beneficial for them.

You could throw in an exclusive deal, offer or discount – may be membership into an exclusive user club, were they to upgrade right away. Alternately, you can plan your upgrade mails to synchronize with your customer’s closest personal milestone dates (data which you would have already collated). A special birthday offer, an anniversary discount, the first milestone achieved offer, etc.

Invites for QBR

Quarterly Business Reviews (QBRs) are an indispensable part of customer success. The quarterly meetups are the right time for the CSM and customers to interact with each other and find out whether everything is going as per plan or not. When you send them an invite, make sure that they attend the meeting and also respond back to your email. This will depend on the convincing power that you have used in the emails that you send them.

Here is a customer success email template for QBR invitation to your customers.

Subject*:SmartKarrot<>CustomerName | Invitation for Business Review meeting
Hey {First Name},

Hope you are doing well.

It has been a long time since we met in person to discuss your business and its growth!

Hence, I wanted to set up a strategic Business Review meeting with my CEO- Mr. Prithwi Dasgupta. He is personally and strategically invested in helping you achieve your goals in customer success.

 
At the high level, we will discuss

1. How to optimize the SaaS metrics of yours like MRR Retention, MRR churn, Onboarding time, etc.
   Aligning our Quarterly goal.
2. Discussing Best Practices Guide in Customer Success relevant to your business.
3. Sharing 3 months Product Roadmap Take your feedback on the product, processes, etc.

I am setting up an Invitation for next week, you can let me know if the proposed time suits you.

Looking forward!

Thanks,

Overdue of invoice amount template

This email template is highly recommended to send to those customers who have not paid for the invoice in their account since a pretty long time. There are times when customers do fall back in their payment schedules. This is where you can remind them without making them feel low.

Here is an email that you can send without offending the customer.

Subject*: Payment reminder
Hey {First name},

We have sent this email in regard to an overdue invoice on your account. Please use the following steps to make hassle-free payment:

Please our payment line at xxxxxxx
Alternatively, you can also make a wire transfer to Account# xxxxxxxx

In case you have any confusion, feel free to contact your customer success manager.

PS – If you have already made the payment, please ignore this email.

Best Regards,

To sum up

When it comes to customer success email templates, it is about sticking to your basics but mixing a bit of the personal with a lot of professional information. Mostly, queries relating to your products and user behavior will fall into a pattern, helping you correctly template-ise your emails. Keep that latest customer feedback and satisfaction surveys data handy and go as per the customer’s pulse.

Timely emails help build trust and long-term relations with customers by making them feel valued and cared for. It is a process that needs consistency, along with the continuous revision to suit customer requirements.

Include all major updates, achievement triggers, events, and webinars, along with personalized greetings and wishes in your automated customer success email templates.

But having said all this, never hesitate to pick up the phone and have a conversation if the situation/customer demands it!

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