Customer Service Follow Up Emails: When, Why, and How to Write Them

When to use a customer service follow up email

Most people only think to use customer service follow up emails to: 

• Remind customers about late payments
• Ask clients to approve a quote
• Touch base after a customer complaint or concern

But customer service emails can serve a variety of other purposes, such as: 

• Asking a happy customer for a review or referral after a job is done
• Promoting a new feature or upselling a service
• Asking for follows on social media to keep customers engaged with your business
• Getting feedback through a customer satisfaction survey

Why you should send customer service follow up emails

Aside from the obvious benefits, like getting a glowing review or receiving a payment, sending strategic and purposeful customer service follow up emails also helps you to: 

1. Build a relationship with your client. If the only time a client hears from you is when you send an invoice, they may forget you exist. But if you keep in touch and reach out with relevant emails after a job, you’ll stay top of mind. 
2. Increase profit. Reaching out with applicable discounts, upsells, and promotions is a great way to win jobs, and the more jobs you win, the more profit you get. 
3. Gain a good reputation. Staying in touch with customers and keeping them in the know boosts your reputation as a professional and legitimate service provider. 
4. Market your business. Customer service follow up emails are a great way to generate leads and promote your business, giving you an email marketing strategy to employ. 
5. Improve the overall customer experience. When you ask customers to share their feedback about a job or you check in to offer a discount for continued service, it shows you care about them, increasing customer satisfaction and developing customer loyalty.

Best practices for sending customer service follow up emails

Before you jump in and start sending customer emails, it’s important to know how to craft them in order to ensure they’re successful. 

Follow these best practices to ensure your customer emails are effective and efficient: 

1. Be polite and professional. Don’t let the frustration of an unapproved quote or overdue payment show through your follow-up message. Keep your tone polite and professional, and thank your customer for their time and consideration.
2. Provide a deadline. If you’re following up on a quote or invoice, provide an approval or payment deadline so your client knows when you’re expecting a response.
3. Space out your follow ups. Your clients might have busy life or work schedules that make it difficult to respond right away. Wait 3–5 business days after your initial email before sending a second follow-up message.
4. Offer assistance. Let your client know you’re available to answer any questions about the quote, job, or invoice, and provide any necessary information.
5. Keep it short and to the point. Be clear and consistent with your message, and avoid making your email long or overly complicated. It should serve a single purpose and the customer should be able to take action quickly and easily.
6. Include the original message. If you’re following up on a quote or an unpaid invoice, include the email thread of your previous conversation, attach a PDF file, or link to it.
7. Make sure it’s relevant. The more relevant your emails are to a customer, the more likely they are to respond to them. Make sure that when you reach out, your message is applicable to the client based on the service you provided. For example, it may not be appropriate to send a request to follow you on social media after a customer complaint. 
8. Automate them, when possible. Manually sending customer service follow ups takes time and allows for human error. Automating messages makes sure they’re correct, saves you time, and keeps things running smoothly.

How to format your customer service follow up email

Customer service follow up emails need to be formatted properly to ensure your message is received in the right way. Each one should include the following elements: 

1. A subject line. Choose a subject line that makes the purpose of your email clear to the reader based on the content. For example, after a job is finished, you might send an email with a subject line like, “Thank You: Your lawn care service by <Plum Landscaping> is complete.”
2. A personalized greeting. The first line in your email should address the customer and say something like, “Dear Customer”. Bonus points if you personalize it by using their name. For example, “Hi Jose”.
3. A clear purpose. The next line in your email should clearly state the purpose behind why you are sending it. For example, you might ask the customer if they have questions about the quote or invoice you provided, or let them know you’re conducting a customer satisfaction survey. 
4. A call to action (CTA). A call to action tells the customer what you want them to do next, like follow your business on social media, approve a quote, or leave a review. It should also tell them how to do it. For example, by linking to your social media pages, directing them to a quote approval page on your website, or telling them where to write their review. 
5. A friendly sign off. Regardless of what your customer service email is for, it should end with a friendly and polite sign off. A simple “Thank you” or “Best regards” will do, but feel free to make it more relevant to your business or change it up based on what kind of email you’re sending. 

Here’s an example of a customer service follow up email made using Jobber’s automated follow-up feature that includes all these components:

8 customer service follow up email templates for service providers

Still not sure how to get started? Use these follow up email templates for your own email marketing campaign. Simply choose the one that best suits your goal and personalize it with your business information. 

1. Quote follow up email template

Sending a quote follow-up email can help you win more jobs and keep work moving forward. It also gives you the opportunity to answer any questions a potential client may have about the job.

Try this email template to follow up on a quote:

2. Service completion confirmation email template

This template can be used to let your client know that you’ve finished the job and to thank them for their business. It also gives them an opportunity to voice any concerns they have with the services you provided.

3. Customer satisfaction email template

Sending a follow-up email for feedback is a chance to connect with your clients and ask for their honest opinions in a professional way. You can even include a customer feedback survey, if you have one.

Positive feedback shows you what you’re doing well, while negative feedback tells you how you can improve your service, solve a problem, and continue the relationship with the client.

Use this email template to ask for feedback from a customer after you finish a job:

4. Service upsell email template

When sending a follow-up email, customer service should be your first priority. Still, it’s worth considering any opportunities to upsell your services after the initial appointment.

For example, can you turn a one-off cleaning appointment into a regular weekly cleaning? Or an appliance repair job into a maintenance contract? How about upselling a spring cleanup into weekly lawn care visits?

When you’re sending an email to a client after a project is finished, include information about any service packages you offer—and maybe even a customer discount as an incentive to work with you again.

5. Overdue invoice email template

Following up on overdue invoices can help you speed up payments and improve cash flow. 

Here’s an overdue payment email template you can use to follow up on unpaid invoices:

6. Referral request email template

A referral from a happy client speaks volumes about your credibility, your professionalism, and the quality of your service. And a follow-up email is a great place to ask for one, especially if you’ve got a customer referral program in place. 

Here’s a template you can use to ask for a referral once a job is done:

7. Review request email template

Like referrals, customer service follow up emails are a great place to ask for reviews. Especially if you know the job was completed on time, in full, and there were no customer complaints. 

Some business owners give their teams a bonus for every 10/10 review they get. This is an extra incentive for their employees to provide above-and-beyond service every time.

Here’s an email template you can use to ask clients to leave you a review after your team completes a job: 

8. Social media promotion email template

If you’re active on social media, you can use customer service follow up emails to point your clients toward your business’s Facebook, Instagram, or Twitter (X) pages.

This is especially important if you use these pages to provide opportunities for your clients to get special deals, access exclusive promotions, and stay up to date with your business.

As an added bonus, if a client likes or shares your posts, their friends and family will see them, too.

To promote your social media and other marketing platforms, try writing a customer service follow-up email like this:

How to automate customer service follow up emails

Most service providers don’t have time to send out customer service follow up emails manually. Thankfully, automating follow up emails is easy with Jobber. All you have to do is: 

• Turn on automatic follow ups for invoices, quotes, or jobs
• Customize your email templates
• Choose whether to send email or text updates

And you’re done! Update and adjust as necessary to reflect new information, business changes, or to add surveys. 

Originally published in November 2023. Last updated on June 13, 2024.