Most SaaS companies have names that can read like a jumble of vowels — they aren’t actually words that most people can interpret, and so are easily rewritten or misspelled to fit something else. It’s probable that your company isn’t any exception. Given that, if you haven’t already, you’ll probably soon get a message from a customer asking you about a service that has nothing to do with what you offer. For example, maybe you are a company that sells organization software, but you receive a message asking you about lighting equipment or a phone answering service. How do you answer these without being rude or condescending? Here’s a guide:

Hi there,

Thanks so much for emailing about this — that’s a great question. I’d love to help with this, but it sounds like you might be asking about [similarly named product, that you found via Google]. You can reach out to them at [email that you found on their website], and they should be able to help you directly.

If I misunderstood and you did mean to reach out to us at [product] where we [describe what you do], then please let me know and I’ll be happy to help further.

Thanks!

This kindly resets the expectations for the customer while also letting them know that they might not have reached out to the best place to help them. Similarly, rather than leaving them high and dry and making them feel silly for reaching out, you also provide them with the information that they need to move forward. So, while you can’t help the customer with what they’re asking about a specific product, you are still able to help them by guiding them in the right direction towards what they need. They’ll remember that.

And, if that was the wrong company, and they were looking for something else, you have the opportunity to shift and help them again when they reach back out.

You’ve done what you can, though, by iterating who your company is and what you do as a means of helping them help themselves if what you do really isn’t going to be a help for them.