Transactional emails are one-to-one records of previous interactions or commercial relationships between a business and a customer. They are automated emails that are sent between a sender and a recipient and are triggered by a customer’s specific actions and contain critical and relevant information to the customer.
These emails can include anything from password reminder emails, to purchase confirmations and personalized product notifications. So, unlike marketing emails, these emails do not contain content that’s meant for marketing purposes, but rather content related to commercial purposes.
In simple terms, these emails aim to inform the customer and not sell to them. Indirectly, though, they do affect a business’s revenue because they improve the customer experience.
What Are Transactional Emails Used For?
Transactional emails are sent to customers to provide them with valuable information at key times of the customer experience. So, for example, if a customer purchases on an e-commerce website, an automated system will send the customer an email or receipt confirming the sale.
Transactional emails do not, however, only relate to purchases but can also relate to a variety of other account actions taken by a customer. These can include:
- Account creation and activation emails.
- Welcome and onboarding messages.
- Customer invitations.
- Security and account alerts.
- Customer password reset and two-factor authentication emails.
- Purchase receipts and notifications of shipping.
- Legal notices.
Why are Transactional Emails Important?
Transactional email provides customers with information that is uniquely relevant to them. These emails can, for example, provide the requested information to a customer, or remind a customer of any action that needs to be taken on their account.
So, from a customer’s perspective, these emails are important because they inform the customer and keep them updated on crucial information relating to their account and their relationship with the specific business. Without them, customers would need to manually check their account page on a specific website regularly.
For businesses, these emails are just as important because they have a significant impact on customer relationships and can improve customer engagement, retention, and conversion. As a result, most businesses send transactional emails in some form or another to communicate important information with the customers. This allows the business to build stronger relationships that help them to build a loyal customer base.
This, in turn, increases revenue for the business when it delivers an excellent customer experience to its customers.
