How To Boost CX With Smart, Automated Email Triggers

Imagine you’re managing a high-performing team at a growing midsized business, juggling looming deadlines, competing priorities, and a never-ending to-do list. You onboard a new project management tool that’s supposed to bring order to the chaos and give you some breathing room . . . if you can get it to work like it’s supposed to, that is.

You’re frustrated, annoyed, and just about ready to pull the plug when up pops an email from the software provider. The customer success team is checking in to see if you’re having any issues and offering instant, hands-on help setting up.

That’s the power of the right message at the right time. One well-timed email can make or break your perception of a brand—and even whether you remain a customer at all.

Today’s consumers and businesses increasingly expect relevant, real-time communication from the brands they work with. Thoughtfully automated email triggers can help you meet this demand at scale.

What are email triggers? And why do they matter?

Triggered emails are promotional or transactional emails that go out based on real-time data and events, like customer actions, user behaviors, milestones, or status changes. 

These pre-written personalized emails send automatically when a relevant event occurs, helping ferry customers along through purchasing, onboarding, and use or implementation. The goal is to provide the right information and actionable steps at each stop on the customer journey.

Email triggers differ from scheduled promotional emails or batch sends. While all of these types of email marketing can be automated and personalized (to a degree), only email triggers tie directly to something happening in the moment. 

This timeliness makes them a powerful sales driver and relationship builder. So while they’re great for businesses of any size, they’re absolutely essential for large organizations looking to deliver scalable personalization.

10 email triggers that elevate customer experiences

Once you master the art of email triggers, you’ll start spotting opportunities to use them at nearly every turn in the customer journey. But it’s better to start small and stay focused on the most important categories. Once you’ve got the process down, you can add in other triggers based on business needs and current email marketing trends.

These 10 email triggers cover the most ground for big brands.

1. Welcome emails

The most important of all, the welcome email sets the tone for everything else. It follows on the heels of a user sign-up, so it’s the first chance you have to reach an already-motivated reader in a more direct, more personalized way.

The welcome email should reassure prospects and new customers that they made the right choice in signing up, that this is the place/product/service for them. 

Best practices for welcome emails:

• Emphasize your value proposition: Remind readers of why they should work with you. What’s in it for them?
• Provide sneak peeks or next steps: Give prospects an inside look at what they get by signing up. If you’re welcoming new users, give them a simple roadmap for what they should do or expect next. 
• Link to helpful resources: You already got the first bite; now start reeling them in with helpful content (blog posts, tutorial videos, getting-started guides).

If you’re supporting a business where a sign-up doesn’t necessarily equal a new paying customer (like an ecommerce business or a freemium SaaS brand), the welcome email could be a great place to plant a discount code as well. They signed up, so they’re already at least a little bit interested. Little nudges along the way can make a big difference.

2. Onboarding nudges

If you’re offering complex tools or services, onboarding is a process, not a single email. Many businesses with complex offerings let customers fall off the onboarding train too early, before they fully understand how to use the product.

Onboarding nudges are emails (often part of a series) that guide users through the onboarding funnel, keeping them engaged while steering them toward desired customer behavior or the next implementation step. For simpler products and services, a single email laying out next steps may be all you need. 

Best practices for onboarding nudges:

• Be clear in purpose: Avoid vague language, business jargon, and marketing buzzwords. Describe clearly the purpose of the nudge and what specifically the reader stands to gain.
• Move toward value: These emails should shorten time-to-value (TTV) and clue the reader in to that value.
• Include a call to action (CTA): Provide a link/button that brings people straight to the next step in their onboarding journey.
• Throw out a lifeline: Some users abandon onboarding out of frustration and may be days away from churning. If possible, speak to this briefly with an option to contact support or customer success (e.g., “Not working like you expected? We’re here to help!”).

3. Transactional confirmations

Transactional emails are the ones that go out when customers make a purchase. They’re less impactful on your email marketing strategy, but they’re also the easiest type of trigger emails to set up. Post-purchase order confirmation emails are fairly simple email automations with a lot of boilerplate email content.

These feel intuitive in contexts like ecommerce, where users expect confirmation that their purchase was successful, along with shipping information. Transactional confirmations may feel less natural or obvious when there’s no physical product or shipping involved, but sending them is still a good idea. 

Best practices for transactional confirmations:

• Keep the buyer informed: Confirm the transaction, provide a receipt/invoice, and include shipping and tracking information, if any.
• Upsell where possible: Link to upgraded service tiers or complementary products.

4. Shipping and delivery updates

If you’re shipping products or even delivering digital ones that aren’t instantly available, then shipping and delivery updates are a must. Customers want to know what’s happening and when they can expect to start using what they paid for. These emails both reassure and inform. 

Best practices for shipping updates:

• Be clear and transparent: Customers want to know what’s happening, even if it’s not the news they expect. 
• Don’t overdo it: Keep these emails brief. In most situations, two emails will do (“shipped” and “delivered”).
• Provide tracking numbers: More self-service options equals fewer customer service calls.

5. Replenishment reminders

If you sell consumable products, you can anticipate your customers’ needs—and reduce churn—by proactively sending them a follow-up email when it’s time to buy more. For subscription-based products, be sure to send out a reminder email at least a few days before their next order is set to process, giving them an opportunity to make any changes.

Best practices for replenishment and subscription reminders:

• Use a gentle touch: For reminders, avoid putting on the pressure. If they’re happy with what they bought, a kind but not pushy reminder is all it takes.
• Upsell, carefully: Provide a new product recommendation that pairs well with the items they already use.

6. Loyalty milestone or reward emails

Businesses with any form of customer loyalty program should set up email triggers based on certain thresholds. Whether it’s for dollars spent, miles traveled, or purchases made, customized emails celebrating the milestone or highlighting the reward help increase repeat purchases and brand loyalty.

Best practices for loyalty or rewards emails:

• Offer value: Whether it’s a freebie, discount, or resource, include something of value for the recipient.
• Keep selling: Beyond the reward itself, include a valuable resource or specific action the user can take to continue engaging with your business.

7. Review or feedback requests

Both public reviews and private feedback help your business thrive, bolstering your reputation and giving you information you need to improve. Setting up triggers to request feedback can help you gain better insights into how customers are responding to your products or services.

Best practices for feedback or review requests:

• Time it well: Receiving a request for feedback randomly can feel jarring or like a mistake, so tie these emails to purchases or usage milestones.
• Invest in quality: How much value you get from these requests depends on the quality and relevance of the questions. 
• Rotate review platforms: Send user segments to different review platforms or rotate which one you promote to cover more promotional ground.

8. Abandoned cart reminders

Users abandon carts for all kinds of reasons, and many are far more nuanced than a simple “no thanks.” Maybe it wasn’t the right time, they got called into a meeting, or a kid needed attention. A well-timed abandoned cart email brings customers back to that decision point, where some will finish what they started.

Best practices for abandoned cart reminders:

• Give it time: A few hours to a few days after cart abandonment is usually a good window.
• Sweeten the pot: If margins allow, include a small discount in the cart abandonment email to incentivize a purchase.

9. Re-engagement or winback emails

These emails target customers who haven’t bought in a while (or who haven’t used your service or software in a while). The goal is to win back business, recapturing these customers before they churn for good.

Best practices for re-engagement or windback emails:

• Stay optimistic but humble: You believe in what you offer, so let that show. But remember your audience here and keep it grounded.
• Provide an off-ramp: Users sometimes outgrow products, and that’s OK. Give recipients an easy way to tell you when this happens.
• Know when to fold ‘em: Some customers aren’t coming back. Stick with two or three re-engagement emails max so you don’t annoy them (and waste your money).

10. Subscription or account renewal reminders

Similar to replenishment messages, reminder emails are perfect for digital subscriptions and recurring software licenses. No one likes to be surprised by an unexpected charge, so give customers a heads up that they’re about to be billed for another month or year. 

• Be clear: If it’s been a year, readers may be fuzzy on the details. Be clear about what they’re paying for and the value it offers.
• Give them a way out: For subscriptions, some friction when canceling is good, but don’t bury or hide the option to cancel or quit.
• Upsell or cross-sell: Make it simple for users to adjust their tier or add on an additional service. They get a better fit for their needs, and you get more revenue. 

What makes triggers effective?

As humans, we place a lot of value on feeling seen, appreciated, and understood. When used strategically, personalized triggered emails pull on those same threads, and that’s a powerful addition to the customer experience.

The single most important element of a trigger is its timeliness. You’re trying to reach a customer or prospect at exactly the right moment based on an action that they took. But for the trigger to land, the message also has to be right. So make sure your subject line, body copy, and any CTAs are clear, relevant, and personalized too. 

The key to all of these elements is using behavioral and transactional data, not just demographic segments or static email lists. In other words, if you want to meet customers exactly where they’re at on their journeys, you’ll need deep data that tells you the Five W’s: who, what, where, when, and why.  

Challenges brands face when scaling triggered email campaigns

Brands often struggle with vast amounts of siloed data, some of it incomplete or even contradictory. When you can’t trust the data (or can’t even access some of it), it’s tough to confidently launch personalized email trigger campaigns.

Legacy email platforms magnify this problem because they lack powerful marketing capabilities like flexible automation and journey-building tools. Add in a poorly connected third-party marketing platform, and it just escalates the problems of siloing and data reliability. 

Deliverability issues can hamper these email marketing campaigns as well. Even the best-crafted emails are useless if they never reach inboxes or eyeballs. So you’ll need reliable, modern tools to pull off a successful personalized trigger campaign at scale.

How the right platform helps you orchestrate these moments at scale

Companies that rely on ServiceNow for business intelligence (BI) and operations know it’s a highly capable enterprise platform. But when it comes to marketing, it’s missing some of the capabilities that you need to fully visualize and act on the data that’s in there. That’s why Tenon was created. 

Tenon is a native-built ServiceNow application that provides comprehensive marketing automation capabilities to help you break down the silos and actually use the data you’re collecting. 

Enterprise brands rely on Tenon to build email triggers based on events or actions, criteria, schedules, and much more, all powered by unified, real-time customer data. Plus, the built-in journey builder and discoverability tools support teams of all sizes as they create high-performing triggered experiences that scale with ease.

Leverage triggered emails as customer experience drivers

Timely, personalized emails are the secret sauce that makes the automated, digital customer experience feel human again. Done right, email triggers can build trust, grow sales, speed up adoption, and increase customer retention. But what about implementation?

ServiceNow offers massive value and power, but personalized marketing is a big challenge within the platform. You need a purpose-built solution built by marketers, for marketers. You need Tenon.

Tenon adds marketing intelligence to ServiceNow, putting the right data to work in the right places, making it easy to roll out personalized email marketing at scale.

Book a demo today to see how Tenon can transform your email marketing automation.

‍