Email Examples and Templates for Staff and Customer Correspondence

When it’s appropriate to reopen, your company will want to send out a clear message to both staff and customers informing them on what to expect. While this isn’t the sole responsibility of HR teams, you’ll want to emphasize key messaging points. Specifics of each email will vary business-to-business and company-to-company, but there are a few core elements that any business will need to communicate to its community.

Internal staff letter

• When are you opening and what is motivating that decision?
• When are employees expected to return to work, and will there be normal working hours?
• What are the changes employees should expect from their office, job expectations, and behavior?
• Where do employees go to get more information on COVID-19 changes?
• Who can employees turn to for questions or help?

External customer letter

• When are you opening and what’s motivating that decision?
• What are your hours of operation?
• Are there any special hours of operation for elderly, or people with high-risk conditions?
• What has your business done to change your operations to make it safer for customers or clients to interact with you?

Here are a couple email template examples you’re welcome to copy and paste for personal or business use.

Template for internal staff letter

Subject Line: Employees, Welcome Back to the Office June 05, 2020

Hello Team,

We are excited to announce that our leadership team, in adherence to local and federal law, has deemed it safe and appropriate to reopen our main office for a select group of employees.

The office will be reopening, with normal operating hours of 9am to 5pm, starting June 05, 2020.

You will be receiving an email from your direct supervisor with specific instructions for your job role by tomorrow, but a glance here these are the departments that are cleared to work again in the office while following new office conduct guidelines to ensure the safety of our entire team:

• Marketing
• Sales
• Customer service

Here are the employee groups that we’d advise remain working from home for the time being:

• Accounting
• HR
• Finance
• Legal

Please note our decisions on these groups were solely based on how well these groups can perform their job duties remotely versus in a team, how well our business’s investments in digital infrastructure, and do not reflect any favoritism of any kind. In addition, we have reconfigured the office to allow each in-office employee a 6-foot radius from any other worker, which has reduced our total in-office capacity for the time being. We will continue to operate with remote work mentalities of inclusiveness to operate as a whole team at all times. Any staff member who does not feel comfortable returning to work is welcome to have a one-on-one conversation with your boss regarding your circumstances. And likewise, if you feel there is a compelling case that your role needs to be at the office, please reach out.

This won’t be the last to our changes, either.

We’ve rolled out new corporate policies regarding the cleanliness of rooms, staff behaviors, how to when to wash hands, how and when to use conference rooms, and how many people are allowed to be in one room at one time. Please review the new policies in our employee handbook here.

In addition we anticipate that policies, procedures, and operations will continue to evolve as we understand what’s working and what’s not.

We ask that all staff be nimble, patient, and curious as we embark on rolling out our new procedures, and know that we are in it together. 

If you have any questions, or want to talk confidently to the leadership team or HR team, please do so:

[email protected] – HR questions

[email protected] – CEO

Or you can always ask questions to your manager.

We are excited to be on this path with you, of recovery.

Now, let’s get to work!

— Name

Template for external staff letter

Subject Line: Please join us as we re-open our doors on June 05, 2020

Dear Valued Customer,

We are beyond grateful for your continued support and loyalty to our brand and services. At this time I am proudly able to announce the reopening of Our Business on June 05, 2020.

Things have been rocky these last few months, and it’s because of the commitment you have provided us with that we are able to keep our employees onboard and doors open.

For this, on behalf of everyone at Our Business, we thank you.

So what’s next?

We are preparing a socially-distanced grand reopening party on June 5th and 6th. Come drop by. We are open for normal business hours of 9am-5pm, and are extending hours to high-risk communities from 8am-9am. Here are some other things we’ve done, to protect you, our customers:

• Retrofitted our space to ensure customers and staff are able to maintain 6-foot distances at all times.
• Invested in touchless checkouts, and we are temporarily not accepting cash.
• Sanitizing stations at each door, and encourage all patrons, visitors and staff to sanitize their hands upon entry and exit to the building
• Invested in high-quality cleaning supplies, and doubled our cleaning efforts

If there are other ways you feel we need to take precaution, please let us know.

Otherwise, we are excited to see you at our grand reopening party where you can pick up supplies at 20% off, help decorate our sidewalk with sidewalk chalk, and connect with the community at a safe distance.

On behalf of all small businesses in this community, we thank you for your continued support,

— Name