22 “Could You Please Confirm…” Statements For Chat And Email

Whether you’re a customer support agent, a sales representative, or another type of business professional, you will use confirmation statements in most of your email and chat correspondences.

Confirmation statements help you verify or clarify important information. It’s crucial that you know how and when to use them, as they will help you in many of the common scenarios you face at work every day.

For example, confirming information allows you to look up a customer’s account details; prevents yourself and others from making a mistake based on false or misunderstood information; and reminds you of important calendar dates, such as the day and time of your next business meeting.

You may think that asking to confirm information is redundant, especially if you already have the information in front of you or saved in a previous conversation.

But the truth is that it’s always a good thing to verify that the information you have–or that the other person in the conversation has–is correct. It saves a lot of time and energy, as well as ensures that everyone is on the same page.

To help you hack this time-saving, efficiency-boosting communication strategy, we created this guide to using “could you please confirm” statements.

In this guide, we’ll cover common situations where you will need to use a “could you please confirm” phrase and how to compose one of your own. At the end, you’ll see examples of confirmation statements in chat and email templates that you can copy and paste into your own correspondence.

Common “Could You Please Confirm” Situations

Confirmation statements are useful in any chat or email conversation anywhere in your business, including in the customer support and sales departments.

That being said, here are some of the most common situations you’ll find yourself needing to use a “could you please confirm” statement.

1. Looking Up Information About A Customer

For customer support, if you need to look up information about a customer such as their account or a past order, you’ll need to confirm some details. In this situation, you may ask them to confirm their first and last name or their order number. Then you can use those details to look up their history so you can help them with their issue.

2. Verifying A Customer’s Identity

Verifying a customer’s identity is an extremely important step that all support agents should take when interacting with a customer.

Why is this step so essential? First, you need to make sure that you’re looking up the right account so you have accurate information to reference. Second, you need to know for certain that the customer is who they say they are. The last thing you want to do is not take steps to confirm their identity, only to give sensitive information to an impersonator or a scam artist.

By asking the customer, “Can you please confirm your first and last name?” or “Can you confirm the last four digits of your social security number?” you are politely asking them to verify their identity. Once this step is done, you can move forward and continue helping the customer resolve their issue.

3. Confirming Contact Information

Confirming someone else’s contact information is a scenario you will encounter every day, regardless of what department you work in.

You may be speaking with a customer in a support chat and need to send an invoice to their email. Or you may be conversing with your boss via email and need to talk to them over the phone to discuss a promotion or other sensitive business.

Those are just a couple of common examples. Anytime you think you may need to contact the other person via a different method than what you’re currently using, you should ask them to confirm their contact information.

Even if you have a phone number and email address on file for the other person, you should still confirm it. What if they changed it recently? Or what if they no longer use that email account for professional correspondence? That’s a risk you shouldn’t take. Not confirming contact details could lead to the loss of future sales or cutting off an important connection that could have led you to new career opportunities.

You’ll save yourself a lot of frustration and missed communication if you simply ask the other person in your conversation to confirm their contact details.

4. Confirming an Upcoming Meeting or Event

It’s a great idea to confirm an upcoming meeting or event, especially if you aren’t sure on the date or time.

We’re all human, and this means that we all forget important information sometimes. We lose track of or delete important emails that we didn’t realize we would need later. We didn’t write the meeting or event written on our calendar.

In some cases, you may not have forgotten. You may simply want to ensure that the other person (or people) involved in the meeting or event didn’t forget. You want to confirm that they can still attend, that a specific date and time still works for their schedule.

In any of these scenarios, a “could you please confirm” statement is both appropriate and effective.

Tips For Writing A “Could You Please Confirm” Statement In A Chat Or Email

When you write a confirmation statement into your chat or email, keep the following 4 tips in mind to make sure your requests are always professional, polite, and appropriate.

1. Explain Why You Need The Information They Are Confirming

Sometimes, the person you’re talking to via chat or email may wonder why you’re asking them to confirm certain information. This is especially true if the information is personal or sensitive.

One easy way to reassure the other person is to simply explain to them why you need this specific piece of information.

For example, you can ask a customer, “Could you please confirm your order number so that I can look it up in our system?” Or you can ask your fellow professional, “Can you confirm the date and time of the meeting? I seem to have lost the first email that communicated this information.”

By offering a simple, honest explanation with your confirmation request, you will help the conversation proceed smoothly in the direction you want it to go.

Get The Timing Of Your Confirmation Request Right

When you ask for a confirmation regarding a time-sensitive event, such as a report deadline or a meeting, you must get the timing of your request just right.

Why is this so important? The reason is you don’t want to send your confirmation request at the last minute. Leaving it to the last day may indicate to the other person one of two things: 1) you forgot about the event, or 2) you are not prepared for it. Both of these assumptions could damage your professional reputation as well as your credibility.

To avoid this embarrassing scenario, you should time your confirmation request for a time sensitive-event 3-4 days before the event is set to occur. This way, you will show the other person that you are on top of your work, and it will also give you time to prepare in case the date and/or time of the event changed.

3. Remember To Save The Information You Asked The Other Person To Confirm

When you ask for confirmation, don’t forget to save the information the other person confirms. This step will save you from having to ask again, which may annoy the other person and cast you in a bad light.

4. Don’t Ask For Too Much Personally Identifiable Information

This tip is crucial for agents that interact with customers, whether it’s in support or sales.

Chats and emails are not the most secure forms of conversation. There is always a possibility that a hacker could view the information you or the other person sends across these channels.

With this in mind, it’s important that you don’t ask the customer to confirm too much personally identifiable information via chat or email unless absolutely necessary.

How much personal information is considered “too much”? One example is the customer’s full social security number. Another is their full debit or credit card number, including their billing address and the 3-digit code on the back of the card.

The reason for not asking the customer to confirm this type of information is, if a hacker was to get a hold of this type of information, they could do serious harm to the customer.

That’s why if you need more than just basic personally identifiable information (i.e., their date of birth, the last four digits of their card number, their mailing address, etc.), you should move the conversation from chat or email to the phone. This way, your conversation will be more secure.

15 “Could You Please Confirm” Chat Templates

The following 15 “could you please confirm” templates are designed for chat conversations. These will be most useful for support and sales agents who communicate with customers online, as well as business associates who correspond through Slack, Teams, or similar platforms.

• Can you please confirm your email address so I can check your account status?
• I’ll need to confirm your order number to look up the desired information - can you please provide the last 8 digits?
• Can you please confirm the last 4 digits of your credit card number?
• Can you confirm your date of birth?
• Can you please confirm what date you made the purchase so I can look back into our records?
• Can you confirm the date that you received the order so I can check if you qualify for a refund?
• Can you please confirm your contact number so we can continue this conversation over the phone?
• I need to email you some instructions. Can you confirm your email address for me?
• I need to text you a code to verify your identity. Can you please confirm the last 4 digits of your cell phone number?
• Can you confirm that you’d like me to proceed with the order?
• Can you confirm that our meeting for {{datetime}} still works for you?
• Can you please confirm your contact number so that I can call you on the day of our phone meeting?
• Can you confirm what date this report is due?
• Can you please confirm the location of the meeting? I seem to have misplaced that information.
• Could you please confirm if you received my message?

7 “Could You Please Confirm” Email Templates

Below are 7 “could you please confirm” email templates you can copy and paste into your email correspondences with customers and professionals.

Email #1

Hi Sarah,

Unfortunately we need to reschedule you for next week.

Can you please confirm your availability for the 18th at 3pm for a 30-minute call?

Thank you,

{{name}}

Email #2

Hi Jo,

I was told that our deadline is next Monday, but I thought we have until next Wednesday. Can you please confirm what the correct date is?

{{name}}

Email #3

Hello Mr. Scott,

I’d like to continue our conversation about this sale over the phone, if that’s alright with you. Can you please confirm a good contact number?

Sincerely,

{{name}}

Email #4

Hello Jan,

Attached are the instructions you’ll need to follow to fix your support issue. Can you confirm that you received them and let me know if this helps?

Sincerely,

{{name}}

Email #5

Hello Andy,

I am emailing you to confirm that you received the report I sent you last week. Please let me know at your earliest convenience.

Thank you,

{{name}}

Email #6

Hello Pam,

We need to confirm your payment information to complete the sale. Can you call us at {{phone number}} at your earliest convenience?

Sincerely,

{{name}}

Email #7

Dear Mr. Wallace,

I’m looking forward to our meeting. I am just confirming that {{datetime}} still works for you. Please let me know if we need to change. If not, I will speak with you then!

Sincerely,

{{name}}