Nobody wants to read. Open rates are dead. Email is spam.

People have been saying this for years — I disagree. I think email is a powerful way to get someone’s attention. It is not intrusive like calls and messages; yet, more personal than ads & social media. It gives you a wonderful canvas to say what you want to. And it stays in someone’s inbox, more or less permanently.

Provided, of course, you do it well.

I have built up email strategy for a number of brands: nurture sequences at CrackVerbal to guide young professionals looking to study abroad; engaging newsletters at Urban Ladder to put the fun in furniture shopping; nudging parents to let children play wild & free at shumee toys; telling uplifting stories of giving without selling poverty porn at GiveIndia.

Since 2019, I have been doing this for the marketing team at bigbasket, India’s largest online supermarket. During the pandemic, bigbasket faced a massive surge in demand, coupled with operational challenges. In spite of their best efforts, they could not fulfill many orders, leaving customers disgruntled. The team’s first priority was fixing the issues. But once things were getting back to normal, they wanted to reach out to all their customers to explain what happened.

Before I set to work on this email, I had multiple conversations during which the team was very clear about the problem statement. ‘We did our best but we still disappointed some customers. This falls short of the service standards we set for ourselves. How can we make it better?’

All along, we have been working to craft Bigbasket’s voice to reflect its values: authentic, straightforward, heartfelt. No gimmicks. No deflective humour to draw attention away from the problem.

So that’s what we did here. We owned up. We explained what went wrong. We told customers what we are doing to make things better. And signed off with a coupon-equivalent of an apology bouquet. We also asked them to give us another chance— and I am happy to see some of the comments here expressing that sentiment. You can see the email here.

This email, sent to over 10 lakh people, caught attention and Bigbasket exceeded their expectations in terms of customers retained. It also created a buzz on social media.

Is it possible to make fruit interesting? Or cooking oils? In bigbasket emails, we try. We do this by telling fascinating backstories, busting myths, and sharing practical tips. You can see examples here.