We’re all painfully aware of how crammed our inboxes are. Every day we’re forced to sift through each email we get and decide whether each one is worth our time to open, let alone read or respond to. So, how can you possibly get your clients to respond to your customer service outreach messages in all that mess? With help from Jeff Toister and his article, “Five Characteristics of a Powerful Customer Survey,” here are some tips for how to make your emails to your clients super effective.

1. Call Your Clients to Action

From your subject line to your signature, the entirety of your email should be purposeful and persuasive. Generic subject lines will send your email straight to the trash without a second glance. And irrelevant content will only delay that same fate for so long. Give your emails a proactive subject line that lets them know that your email isn’t just an, “I’m forced to do this so that you will remember that I exist,” letter. Let your clients know that you’re reaching out for a purpose, for feedback that will benefit you both, and they’ll be more likely to take the time to read and respond.

2. Keep it Simple

A cluttered, lengthy email is just as likely to scare off your clients as a purposeless one. Remember, they have a number of other emails to get to, so show that you value their time as well as their opinion by keeping your emails to the point. Address why you’re writing, limit the number of questions you ask to the most important ones, and make sure you style the email in a clean, well-​organized format.

3. Ask Open-​Ended Questions

Keeping it simple doesn’t mean that you should give the client a chance to ‘dumb-​down’ their answers. Questions with yes or no answers will only be so helpful to you. Ask open-​ended questions that are tailored to the client so that they’ll be worth taking the time to write out the answers to.