“Just write it like the SaltEdge email.”
If you ask the product/service delivery teams what my best contribution to Xolo is, I bet they would say this email. This also happens to be one of the hardest emails I've ever written, given the technical complexity and sensitive nature of the subject. (We anticipated a lot of emails from unhappy users).
Tone of voice required extra tap-dancing. Sorry, but not too sorry since it wasn't technically our fault. Thorough, but brief. Authoritative enough to put people at ease about the security of their financial data — but still breezy enough to not raise the alarm re: the security of their financial data. Sympathetic, without encouraging readers to wallow in negativity.
This email performed well (80% open rate, 39% click-through), and several customers wrote in with positive feedback (see below). Unfortunately, this email also set a very high bar for my ability to message our way out of a crisis. "Just write it like the SaltEdge email.”
“Hey, this was the best email depending on a bad news I've ever read from a company. It was a pleasure to go through the whole text until the very last word. Whoever wrote that text: she/he did the job excellent. Go on and thanks for finding a great solution!”
— User feedback