18 customer service email templates that'll save you hours

But, not every business responds to all those customer emails quickly enough—some of them may not even put a lot of effort into their responses.

Engaging customers and satisfactorily solving problems in an email, however, can be a challenge. That's why we've prepared these 18 customer service email templates. Using customer service response templates for your follow up emails can save you a ton of time and help you show your customers that you care about them:

• The anatomy of a great customer service email
• How to use these customer service email templates
• 1. Welcome
• 2. Onboarding
• 3. Issue follow-up
• 4. Happy customer
• 5. Angry customer
• 6. Customer who's leaving
• 7. Request for features
• 8. Renewal reminder
• 9. Quick answer
• 10. Review request
• 11. Need more information
• 12. Return/refund
• 13. Checking in
• 14. Discount request: yes
• 15. Discount request: no
• 16. Directing to existing resource
• 17. Service interruption
• 18. Satisfaction follow-up

Before we get into the templates, though, let's talk through the basic structure of a great customer service email.

There's one primary thing you should focus on when creating and using email templates: empathy.

Show the customer that you know they're a real person and that their issue is important. If you can do that, you have customer service email gold.

LiveChat sums it up nicely with these six steps:

1. Actually greeting the customer
2. Addressing the customer by name
3. Thanking the customer for contact
4. Summarize the situation
5. Moving down to the answer
6. Close with style

That's what we focused on in these email templates. Of course, the less of a generic canned response and the more personal you can make your response for each customer, the better.

Each of these templates is best suited to a particular situation. But you can use them however you want. Maybe our "Happy customers" email sounds like a good way to ask people for reviews. Or our "Onboarding" email template works for proactive outreach from your customer success team.

That's totally fine. You can use them in whatever way works best for you. But there are a couple things we recommend.

First, put them into your CRM. That way, whenever you want to send one, you can just click the title of the email template you want to use, customize a few parts of it, and send it off. No need to think about what you're going to say or what information you should include:

Second, make sure to customize the bracketed portions of each email template. We've included placeholders for your company name, product name, and other specific pieces of information that you'll want in some emails. Make sure to swap them out with the correct info. At the very least, you'll want to include your customer's name and your name.

Third, personalize messages when you can. Whether you have an unhappy or happy customer, personalized emails enhance the overall customer experience and therefore leads to building a relationship with the client, potentially turning them into a loyal customer. People appreciate it when a customer service agent makes an effort when asking additional questions (including open-ended sales questions) the customer might have. Ask about something you know they like to do, a previous project they worked on, or anything else that shows you're not just sending a form email. You actually care about this person. If you’re using a CRM, it makes this step much easier—your software stores these valuable customer details for you in one easily accessible place:.

Here's how it looks in Copper:

Finally, double-check to make sure you took out all of the bracketed words. It's easy to miss one, and it looks very unprofessional. Take a minute with each email to make sure you've updated everything.

And now, onto the email templates!

When a new customer comes to your company, you want to make sure they feel welcome. Here's a quick "hello" customer service email template that helps you do that:

Many companies have resources specifically tailored to new customers. That might be an FAQ page, a series of video tutorials, blog posts, or anything else that helps people get up and running right away. (This is especially common in the SaaS world, but can certainly happen elsewhere, too.)

Here's how to send that information to a new customer:

Sometimes a customer requests help or submits a ticket and then disappears. It's a good idea to follow up to make sure that the issue has been resolved (and clear the ticket off of your desk so you can focus on something else):

Your product is awesome. So is your company. You're going to get emails from happy customers. Here's how to respond:

If you're really serious about creating product champions, you can also consider giving out a free coupon code or something else similarly valuable to the people who are already loving your company. They'll be even more likely to refer their friends.

Of course, this is also something you'll have to deal with. It's not much fun, but it's a big part of the profession. So you need to be prepared.

Instead of trying to come up with something on the spot, use this customer service email template to keep a level head and try to move the conversation forward:

Of course, there are lots of situations in which you might get an angry customer complaint in an email. This template works best if something went wrong with your product or the customer's account, but there are other kinds of angry emails you'll get, too. This template won't work for everything, but it'll help you strike the right tone in the rest of your emails to angry customers.

Sometimes you can't fix the problem, or the customer just isn't happy with how long it's taking to deal with their request. And they'll leave.

At this point, there's little you can do about it, but you can at least try to make a good impression with your email:

If you're in the software business, you get these emails all the time. Customers want a specific feature, and they want you to build it. Sometimes you can do it, sometimes you can't. But you always need to respond. Here's one way you can do it:

Offering an alternative solution is a great way to show the customer that you want to be helpful. It might be an integration with another service, an app that works well with yours, or a different feature that serves a similar function.

If you're running a subscription service, you'll want to remind people when they need to renew their subscription.

You can have different templates for different situations, including when a customer doesn't have a valid credit card on file, if they've just completed a free trial, or anything else that seems relevant. This is a basic one that can be used in most situations:

If a customer emails you with a simple question, you can use a template to create a quick response without taking the time to write it all out. Here's one way to do that:

After a certain amount of time, you might want to ask your customers to review your product or company. This is a situation where a customer service email template can save you a ton of time, since it needs very little customization:

When customers write in, they don't always include the information you need to address their problem. And while that can be annoying, it's important to keep a neutral tone when you're responding:

No matter how great your product is, you'll occasionally have to process a return or refund. Having a customer service email template will make it much easier, especially since you may not have to customize this one very much:

Of course, you may need to include other information, like return codes or shipping details. But something like this should serve you well most of the time.

While "just checking in" emails are more the domain of customer service and account management teams, they can be useful in customer service, too:

While salespeople are more likely to deal with discount requests, customer service reps get them occasionally, too. Here's a quick email for saying "yes" to a discount request:

Of course, you won't always be able to grant a discount request. So here's an email template for saying no:

If at all possible, include a secondary option. It might be a free month of service, a tip on how to get more out of a subscription, or alternative pricing that ends up being a better deal.

Many companies have a lot of customer service information online—but users often bypass these and go right to the email option. Sometimes it's better to point them to a resource that's already available than to try and explain it again:

The resource you point them to can be anything from a blog post to a video or support center page. The most important thing is that it solves their specific issue.

If your product requires a server or database connection, there's a good chance you'll have a service outage at some point. And when you do, you can bet that you'll get a bunch of emails. Here's how to respond:

The SuperOffice report found that only 3% of companies send a follow-up email to see if customers are happy with the response they got. This is a big opportunity to stand out from your competition. Here's how to do it:

More tips on writing customer service emails

Looking for general best practices for customer service email writings? Check out this infographic by Hiver on writing the best customer service emails:

As you can see, there are tons of situations in which you might use an email template to make your job easier.

Of course, you don't have to use any of these templates word for word. In fact, you shouldn't.

Use them as a jumping-off point to get the right kinds of emails into your CRM so you and your team can send them off as quickly as possible.

Include information about your business or product where it's appropriate, and tweak the language to fit with your brand voice. Then start sending!