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7 Gmail Templates to Improve Customer Experience in 2024
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8000+ teams use Hiver to delight their customers!

7 Gmail Templates to Improve Customer Experience in 2024

Feb 13, 2024
    |    
10 min read
    |    
Hiver HQ
Ron Stefanski

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Email is a crucial part of every business’s customer communication strategy. But not everyone knows how to leverage this lucrative channel to get the most out of it.  

One effective way to do so is by personalizing emails, something that can help improve the end customer experience. 

According to a study of US marketers, personalized emails deliver transactional rates that are up to 6x higher and generate a median ROI (return on investment) of 122%. 

But, how do you personalize individual emails when you have to send dozens, hundreds, or even thousands at a time? The answer lies in using custom responsive Gmail templates.

A Gmail template (previously known as canned responses) is a prewritten email that you can quickly access, easily change, and send with a single click. 

In this article, we’re going to look at how personalized emails can enhance customer experience, the benefits of using Gmail templates, and examples of how you can use Gmail templates to level up your messaging and communicate with your customers effectively.

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How Do Personalized Emails Increase Customer Experience?

Studies show that personalized emails are 26% more likely to be opened and clicked on. 

If you have ever received a personalized email from a company that looks great on your mobile, and is stylized in a way that grabs your attention, then you understand what a huge impact such custom email templates can have in getting you to take the required action.

Creating a library of templates in Gmail will not only make your life a lot easier but also help you maintain brand consistency, style, and tone of voice in all your marketing, sales, and customer support communications — all of which are great for improving customer experience.

You can create Gmail templates for any of your repetitive messages, including:

  • Welcome emails
  • Post-purchase emails
  • Happy customer response emails
  • Unhappy customer response emails
  • Weekly or monthly newsletters 
  • New customer greeting emails
  • Browse abandonment emails
  • Customer Service Emails
  • Internal team communication emails, etc.
customer service email templates

Benefits of Using Gmail Templates to Personalize Emails

These days, customers expect a personalized experience at every touchpoint when dealing with a business. 

This is especially true in email communications where customers expect an even higher level of personalization.

According to recent studies, personalized emails offer 41% higher unique click rates and 29% higher unique open rates. But those are far from the only benefits. 

Here are a few more advantages of using Gmail templates to personalize emails:

  • Enhance Consistency of Experience: Using Gmail templates to personalize your emails will help you maintain consistency so you can deliver the best possible viewing experience.
  • Save Time and Respond Faster: Another reason to use Gmail templates is that they help you save a lot of time and improve response times. Whether it’s a support email or a simple follow-up, you’ll have a fully drafted email personalized and ready to go in just a few clicks.
  • Improve Relationships: Personalizing email campaigns helps you improve the relationship you have with your email recipients. And that’s because you aren’t taking the one-size-fits-all approach. There’s a higher chance that the content you share resonates with them and this gives them the impression that your company cares about their experience.

In addition to the benefits outlined above, you also get increased inbox delivery rates since custom emails have cleaner, email client-friendly code. This makes it less likely for them to be marked as spam or junk. 

Furthermore, custom email templates help you maximize your customer’s screen real estate and reduce wasted space. By prioritizing your most important content to sit above the fold you give your recipients the best experience after they click “open“. 

Now that we’ve explored the reasons why you should use Gmail templates to personalize emails, let’s take a look at how to go about doing so.

How to Create Gmail Templates

Gmail allows you to create 50 templates, and the process for doing so is as follows: 

First, you need to enable templates

1. Go to mail.Google.com and log into your account.

2. Click the gear icon at the top right corner of the page, and select “Settings“.

3. Next, select “Advanced” in the top toolbar.

4. Set the “Templates” tab to “Enable“. 

5. At the bottom of the page, click “Save Changes”. 

Now you’re ready to start creating templates:

1. Click on “Compose”.

2. Enter your template text in the “Compose” window.

3. Click the three dots for “More” and select “Templates”.

4. Choose an option:

  • To create a new email template, click “Save draft as template” and then “Save as new template”.
  • If you want to change a previously saved template, click “Save draft as template” and under the “Overwrite Template” tab, choose a template and click “Save” to overwrite it.

5. You can now compose your email and click “Send“.

You can access your templates anytime by clicking the three dots in your draft. Select “Templates” and choose the right one.

Important Note: Make sure you delete the email signature from the template if you already have one. Otherwise, it will be shown twice when you use your Gmail template.

Customize Your Gmail Template with CRM Data: You can now integrate your CRM to get full access to your customer data and even track engagement directly from your Gmail inbox. 

You’ll be able to increase reply rates by including recipient data such as job titles, company name, pain points, etc. from your CRM.

Recommended Read
How to Use Gmail as a Helpdesk

Examples of Templates to Increase Customer Experience

Listed below are 7 email templates that are commonly used in sales, marketing, and customer service. 

Each template is best suited to a specific situation. But you can use them in any way that works best for you. For instance, you might choose the “Happy Customer Response” email to solicit reviews from your subscribers. Keep in mind, you can also find professional email templates within many of the best email marketing services like InboxArmy to transform those generic globs of text into well-crafted and personalized emails.

1. Welcome Subscriber Email

Whenever your business gets a new subscriber, it’s important to make the customer feel welcome. 

You can do this by creating a quick “onboarding” or “welcome” customer email template in Gmail. You can then send it each time an event is triggered, such as when a customer signs up for a free trial, subscribes to your newsletter, etc. 

This type of email is important for setting the tone of your future email marketing automation strategy. Also, it has a very high user engagement rate. 

According to statistics, 74% of people expect to receive a welcome email soon after they subscribe to your list and welcome emails have an average open rate of 50%!

Here’s an example of an effective welcome email from Virgin America:

An example of a welcome email from Virgin America
An example of a welcome email from Virgin America

2. Post-Purchase Email

Once a customer purchases your product/service, it triggers a post-purchase email which is an excellent opportunity for you to start building a strong relationship with that customer. 

Remember, acquiring new customers costs five times more than retaining existing ones, so take the time to nurture relationships with your existing ones. Post-purchase templates can help you do just that by including an icon of the product or service and a brief description of what they purchased but ensure you are using an SVG icon because otherwise, it will not work properly in email clients.

Here’s an example of an excellent post-purchase email from Abercrombie and Fitch:

The 'thank you for your purchase' email from Abercrombie & Fitch
A ‘thank you for your purchase’ email by Abercrombie & Fitch

3. Customer Response Email

If your product and company are awesome, you will undoubtedly get a lot of messages/reviews from happy customers. 

But, instead of typing the same reply each time someone leaves you comments, compliments, or feedback, simply create an email response template to acknowledge happy customers and save it in Gmail.

Next time you need to respond to a happy customer, you can do so in just a few clicks. 

Below is an example of an email template for responding to feedback from happy customers:

An example of an email template responding to happy customers - Gmail Templates
An example of an email template responding to happy customers

Unfortunately, you’ll also have to respond to unhappy customers.

This is never fun to do, but it can be a lot easier when you are prepared. 

Create a Gmail template for responding to unhappy customers to help you keep a level head, and respond faster and more professionally. This will also help you avoid the stress of having to come up with responses on the spot.

Here is an example of a customer service email template for responding to an unhappy customer. Although it’s not ideal for all instances where customers might be unhappy with your business, it’s still a great starting point for the tone you should set.

An example of an email template responding to angry / unhappy customers - Gmail Templates
An example of an email template responding to angry/unhappy customers

4. Newsletter Email

In addition to automated, event-based, or trigger-based emails like the ones listed above, you can also use Gmail templates to create and share professional-looking newsletters with your subscribers, such as announcements, project milestones, upcoming events, industry news, sales, coupons, and discounts, etc. 

Additionally, your newsletter can include engaging content such as memes, online courses, inspirational quotes, employee or customer success stories, and much more. 

Curating content for your marketing newsletters is a great way to create a more interesting newsletter that your subscribers will want to read. Your email newsletter can be a combination of purely curated content or a mix of original and curated content.

Here is an example of a weekly email newsletter from Rise and Shine:

An example of an email newsletter from Rise and Shine

5. Browse Abandonment Email

A browse abandonment email is an email you send to customers who viewed but didn’t purchase a product on your site. This type of email can be a powerful tool for re-engaging with customers. 

You can create a Gmail template to help personalize each message and include relevant information to increase the likelihood of getting higher clicks and conversions. 

  • For instance, while crafting emails for abandoned carts, you might want to include images of the products that the potential customer was looking at. 
  • You could also include personalized recommendations of related products based on the shoppers’ browsing behavior. 
  • Moreover, you can include coupons, discounts, etc. as a way to incentivize browse abandoners to complete their purchases.

Here is an example of a browse abandonment email from I Love Ugly which lets customers easily add items to their cart:

I Love Ugly's browse abandonment email with a CTA - Gmail Templates
I Love Ugly’s browse abandonment email with a CTA

6. Internal Communication Email

Happy employees translate to happy customers. And so, as part of your efforts to improve customer experience, you must also focus on improving the experience for your teams. 

One way to do this is by streamlining any and all internal communication.

Whether it’s sending regular email newsletters to your virtual team members or in-house staff, or responding to a crisis situation, Gmail templates can help you do all of it with as little hassle as possible.

Check out this example of a company-wide announcement from Skyline Consultants:

An example of a company-wide announcement from Skyline Consultants
An example of a company-wide announcement from Skyline Consultants

Gmail has over 1.5 billion users, which makes it the world’s most popular email service by a huge margin. 

Regardless of the types of emails that you want to send, and whether you are representing yourself or a company, email headers and footers are an important part to focus on. 

They are among the most viewed areas in an email and can have a positive or negative impact on how your email audience perceives you and your brand. 

That’s why it’s important to take the time to create customized heading and footer templates for your Gmail messages so that you can leave a great impression with each email. 

Heading Template

Changing your email headers is a great way to make your emails stand out. You can do this by creating a header template in Gmail to make your email content more on brand and better targeted to your subscribers.

Ensure your header is consistent with your overall branding. Also, make sure to use your logo in the header so that your audience can immediately recognize who the email is from. In case you’re a business that’s just starting out and don’t have a logo, there are websites like BrandCrowd where you can get free logos at zero cost.

The email header consists of information about:

  • The sender
  • The recipient
  • The date
  • The subject line
  • “From” address
  • “Reply-to” address
  • Image (optional)

When properly formatted, your email header can help you: 

  • Entice readers to click through
  • Clearly set the context and improve conversion rates
  • Increase website views (if you’ve added a CTA that leads to your site)

Here’s an example of a great email header from Conde Nast Travels:

The email header by Conde Nast Travels - Gmail Templates
The email header used by Conde Nast Travels

This is where your professional signature for Gmail goes. It should ideally include an image, sender information, and sometimes even a call to action. You can either insert these things yourself or use an email signature software. 

Either way, customizing your email footer is a great way to make your email communication more authentic.

Here is an example of a Gmail footer template from the CEO of T&M Corporate Properties:

 Email footer from the CEO of T&M Corporate Properties - Gmail Templates
An example of an email footer from the CEO of T&M Corporate Properties

Best Practices for Effective Gmail Template Design

  • Lead with the Most Important Stuff: Always put the highest quality and most important content first. You might consider creating a Gmail template with the featured content section at the top, right below the header.
  • Use Eye-Catching Visuals: It’s a good idea to lay your content around engaging graphics, including images, appealing videos, infographics, slide templates, GIFs, etc. But always make sure you balance the text and images. Too much text can make things look a bit cluttered. 
  • Organize Your Gmail Inbox: The more templates you create and the more emails you send, the greater the need for organization. To ensure that your Gmail templates are used most effectively, ensure that they are easily accessible.
  • User-Friendly Design: A specialist from a digital branding agency, DigitalSilk, suggests organizing the email layout in a user-friendly way so that your reader’s eyes follow a fluid pattern. The “Z” pattern layout below is a great example since eyes are naturally trained to go in a zigzag, left to right, top to bottom pattern.
    To further customize the look of your content, consider using Picsart font generator to create unique and eye-catching font styles.
Z pattern layout for a user-friendly design
An example of how to use the “Z” pattern layout for a user-friendly design

Conclusion

Use the information in this article as inspiration when creating and sharing customer communication. By implementing the tips outlined here, you’ll be able to save time, increase productivity, and enjoy all the other benefits of using Gmail templates to personalize emails and enhance the customer experience.

Ron Stefanski is a professor and entrepreneur who has a passion for helping people create and market their own online business. You can learn more from him by visiting OneHourProfessor.com.

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