How to build customer satisfaction during Black Friday with email

How email supported $9.12 billion in online Black Friday sales

Numbers don’t lie. Adobe’s forcase for 2024 predicts holiday spending wil exceed $240 billion, with Black Friday and Cyber Monday bringing in 24 billion alone. Black Friday is also a peak sending time for brands – Sinch’s global super network alone deployed over 400 million messages during this period in 2022.  

But how do holiday shoppers want to hear from brands and what matters most to them? We conducted a consumer survey to find out. These are the main findings:

• 77.9% of consumers want to hear from brands over multiple channels, but email is still king with 61.3% of respondents preferring communications via email. 

• Most consumers (94.4) consider transactional messages to be important during the holiday season with 75.4% expecting transactional messages within 5 minutes of purchasing. 

• 35% of consumers want to start hearing from brands as early as October 29, a full month before BFCM, while 21.9% prefer even earlier. Only 18.7% are willing to wait until Cyber Week for promotions.  

• Personalized promotions matter: 79.8% of consumers say they value personalized recommendations during BFCM.  

• RCS is a big opportunity for brands to connect with their customers. 51.2% of consumers say they would likely engage with this type of interactive messages sent to their phones.  

• Consumers are open to using AI chatbots during holiday shopping. The most popular use cases are order tracking (56.7%), learning about products before making a purchase (45.8%), and getting after-hours support (43.6%).

There’s no doubt email continues to be the preferred channel to hear from brands about Black Friday deals and other holiday season deals. And while that’s good news for senders who value the low cost of sending email, it also increases the pressure to ensure the right messages reach the inbox at the right time.

And we’re not just talking about promotional emails. Email plays a key role during the holiday season as a transactional channel too, to deliver order confirmations, shipping updates, and other critical messages. A marketing campaign going to spam can have a big impact on ROI, the impact of a missing transactional message can be even worse.

Importance of transactional messaging during Black Friday

94.4 of those surveyed said transactional messages are important during the holiday shopping season. 75.1% prefer their transactional communications over email, while 43.4% want their communications through SMS. More than half (52.6%) like it when they are updated through multiple channels, for example getting purchase confirmations via email, and shipping notifications via SMS. 

It’s easy to assume that consumers appreciate visibility throughout their holiday journey from shopping to shipping. But what became clear from the survey responses is that these messages triggered by customer action, like confirmation emails, shipping notifications, and other informational update emails are non-negotiable when it comes to customer satisfaction, making the timely sending of these transactional automations incredibly important.

So, what happens if your automations fail, and transactional messages aren’t sent? Or if your messages are sent, but land in spam? Well, it isn’t hard to imagine the frustration holiday shoppers might feel and the direct impact on the overall customer experience.

Protecting transactional emails through careful preparation of your sending infrastructure and by following email deliverability best practices is even more important during the holiday season.

As a first step, senders should consider using subdomains to separate your marketing campaigns from your transactional emails. This way, transactional messages, which usually have a higher deliverability rate, won’t be impacted by any dings to your sender reputation caused by your marketing emails.

In some cases, the best protection for these critical notifications is to take an omnichannel approach to transactional messages. Customers already expect brands to reach out through a range of channels, so don’t limit yourself to a single path for important communications.

Beyond email: Channel preferences during the holiday season

When we asked customers how they wanted to hear from brands during the holiday season, the results revealed that email is still the preferred channel – but it’s not the only one. While over three-fourths (77.9) of respondents chose email as one of the channels to get these communications, there were multiple channels represented.   

In fact, 45% of holiday shoppers selected at least one mobile messaging option as a preferred channel for promotions (text message, social media messaging, and in-app notifications). That’s a pretty decent percentage.  

Even with an email-first approach to your Black Friday communications strategy, it’s not a bad strategy to double down and introduce mobile messaging notifications with your most loyal customers or when sending these important transactional updates.

Connecting channels to customer satisfaction

Customer satisfaction is all about delivering an excellent experience for users, from the first time they interact with your brand or use your app to their post-purchase journey with you. And communications play a key role in that experience.

Getting promotional and transactional messages to your audience where they want them and when they need them, is fundamental to building a strong customer experience from start to finish. This means respecting customer preferences when it comes to channels, but it also means ensuring best-in-class deliverability for all these messages – especially purchase confirmations, shipping updates, and other time-sensitive information that shapes the customer experience.

Improving the customer experience is a growing desire among senders. In Sinch Mailgun’s recent State of email deliverability report, it was revealed that senders believe the biggest benefit of prioritizing email deliverability is customer satisfaction, even over driving more ROI.

So, strengthening your focus on email deliverability during the holiday season should be a first step as you prep your holiday strategy. But incorporating other channels, like SMS, as a failsafe to complement transactional messages is also an option worth exploring to protect your customer experience and brand reputation.

Get ready for the holiday season with email personalization 

During the holiday season, personalized email content is no longer optional - it's an expectation. Our recent research shows that 79.8% of consumers want personalized messages during the holiday shopping season, with 43.2% specifically valuing relevant, tailored content. 

The data clearly shows that generic batch-and-blast email campaigns won't cut it anymore. Brands need to leverage data-driven personalization to stand out in crowded inboxes and deliver the customized experience consumers demand. 

How automation improves the customer experience 

While many associate automation primarily with marketing workflows, it's equally valuable for improving customer service and engagement throughout the buyer journey. The data shows strong consumer interest in automated assistance during holiday shopping, particularly for: 

• Order tracking updates (56.6%) 

• Product information and details (45.8%) 

• Customer service inquiries (43.2%) 

Using AI to enhance email engagement 

The data shows that consumers are increasingly comfortable with AI-powered interactions during their holiday shopping journey. When asked about AI-powered assistance: 

• 56.6% want to use it for tracking orders 

• 45.8% would engage to learn more about products 

• 43.2% are interested in after-hours support 

• 36.6% would use it for returns assistance 

• 20% want it as a personal shopping assistant 

For email marketers, this openness to AI creates opportunities to: 

• Generate more engaging subject lines 

• Create personalized email content at scale 

• Optimize send times for better engagement 

• Segment audiences more effectively 

• Automate responses to common inquiries   

With Mailgun's API capabilities, brands can integrate their AI tools with our email infrastructure to deliver these enhanced experiences while maintaining reliable delivery and performance. 

Get the deliverability support you need during the holiday season

As we approach the 2024 holiday season, here are the critical email strategies brands should focus on: 

• Personalization at scale: Use Mailgun's templating and variable capabilities to create dynamically personalized content for each recipient 

• Authentication and deliverability: With increased holiday send volumes, proper email authentication (SPF, DKIM, DMARC) is crucial for reaching the inbox 

• Real-time transactional emails: Leverage our reliable API to ensure time-sensitive notifications like order confirmations and shipping updates arrive instantly 

• List hygiene: Clean your lists before peak season using our email validation tools to maintain high deliverability 

• Performance monitoring: Use our analytics and deliverability tools to track engagement and quickly address any issues 

The holiday season puts enormous pressure on email infrastructure. With Mailgun's scalable platform and deliverability expertise, brands can confidently execute their holiday email strategies while maintaining the performance and reliability their customers expect. 

Want to learn more about optimizing your holiday email program? Our deliverability experts can help ensure your messages reach the inbox during this critical season.