The language of customer services

  One way or another I’ve spent a lot of time with customer services departments recently.  Banks and internet providers and router-repair people and others.  It’s painfully obvious which companies have had the customer service police in and which ones still allow their staff to speak like human beings.  Inevitably the ones who talk to you in Human are much more approachable (even if no more able to resolve a problem)  than the ones sticking to a script that says they have to start every phrase with the words “Yes Ma’am”,  which just makes me feel that they’ve mistaken me for the late Queen Mother (TalkTalk, I’m looking at you)

The language gets even more baroque when they’re apologising for something – even for something that isn’t their fault.

I recently forgot to cancel an automatic renewal on some virus protection software.  Entirely my fault for being slow – and the company gave me plenty of warning that the payment would be taken.  When I finally woke up to the deadline and asked to cancel the renewal it was as though I’d caught them climbing out of a ground floor window with a bag marked swag: 

Dear Penny , kindly accept my sincerest apology for the inconvenience this matter has caused you. Rest assured that this matter will be taken in consideration for the improvement of our process and policy…  Penny, we regret losing you as our valued customer… we’d like to let you know that the only reason why your subscription renewed automatically is because we wanted to make sure that your computer does not become unprotected even for a day … Thank you for giving us the opportunity to assist you … we look forward to being of further service to you in the future…”

and on and on.  It’s not that I don’t appreciate being treated politely by the companies I deal with. It’s just that either they’re taking the piss (not impossible, I’ve had jobs that made me hate the public too); or they’re completely unable to communicate like normal people and need to get a better script.  I can’t be the only person who reads stuff like that and is reminded of one of the great villains in English literature - probably not the effect they’re after.

“They taught us all a deal of umbleness—not much else that I know of, from morning to night. We was to be umble to this person, and umble to that; and to pull off our caps here, and to make bows there; and always to know our place, and abase ourselves before our betters. And we had such a lot of betters!…‘Be umble, Uriah,’ says father to me, ‘and you’ll get on. It was what was always being dinned into you and me at school; it’s what goes down best. Be umble,’ says father, ‘and you’ll do!’ And really it ain’t done bad!”

101 words of advice – what Star Wars teaches copywriters

Discussing the shortcomings of the Star Wars films over breakfast (we’re a cultured family) my husband claimed that Harrison Ford once waved his script at George Lucas snarling: “you know George, you can type this stuff, but you sure as hell can’t say it.”

And that, ladies and gentlemen, is as good a definition of bad writing as I’ve heard.  It’s stuff you can’t say when you read it out.  Dense and knotty, sprouting jargon in every dangling clause, bad writing defeats good actors and casual readers alike. 

Write it.  Cut it.  Cut it again.  Read it aloud.  You’ll be amazed.

Five business terms to ban in 2012

 Loved this Freelance Switch post on Words which should be banned in 2012.  Pedants click on the link and agree – but not before you’ve added to my own top 5 candidates of business terms which should be retired this year:

• Robust meaning ‘effective’ or ‘thorough’ - as in “we need to design a robust process for dealing with this issue”.  Oddly it’s a public service favourite which doesn’t yet seem to have made the leap to the private sector, where they seem more concerned with…
• Granular/ granularity  meaning ‘specific’ or  ‘detailed’- as in: “we need to get to a really granular level of detail on this”. 
• Thought leadership - unacceptable in any circumstances, ever.
• Engage with meaning ‘speak to’
• Stakeholder - incredibly ugly and much over-used.  Irritatingly it’s also incredibly useful.  Work to do to come up with a better alternative. 

Passionate and Solution have been dealt with elsewhere on this blog, as has Mumpreneur, but sadly all three persist like Japanese knotweed.  It’s almost as if no-one pays any attention to what I say…

The value of proof-reading

From the email jobs board (names suppressed to protect the guilty):

Acting as an ambassador for the Group Communications function you will work across a wide range of internal and external communications. You will be working with some of the most talented and influential figures in the publishing field with the opportunity to create ties with the company’s impressive global afflictions.

Whatever that client is paying that recruitment consultancy is far, far too much.

Does blogging drive business?

Boozy lunch last weekend with an old friend who is just dipping a toe into online promotion for his construction business.  He’s getting his first website up and running soon and is thinking about a blog – though he’s not really sure why he might need one.  My answer to the question – so why have you got  a blog? –  may not have helped:

• I enjoy writing it – especially now I’ve been writing for a while and there’s an archive of stuff to look back on.  I don’t feel as strongly about writing as Caitlin Moran, who confesses to salivating at the thought of sitting at the keyboard, but it’s definitely in my top five list of favourite things to do.
• It acts as a shop window for me.  Part of what I offer clients is my ability as a copywriter, the blog lets them see me in action, writing on lots of different subjects.
• It gives me a space to think.  It’s somewhere to gather advice and information about business and my particular sector, weight it up and tease issues into shape in my head through the process of writing about them (there are lots of posts which have been deleted unpublished because I realised half way through that I was barking up entirely the wrong tree).

I think having the blog helps my business enormously – although none of the reasons I do it are directly aimed at increasing turnover.  There are lots of other ways of driving business online.  I’m tempted to agree with whoever it was who said that if you blog you do it for yourself.  If anyone else reads it, it’s a bonus.

On being in the mood

 “Isn’t it really hard, writing when you don’t feel like it?” asked the prospective client I met last week.  She wanted to talk to me about some work on a restorative justice campaign and looked slightly taken aback when I told her I was going home after the meeting to work on a leaflet about Turkish carpets. 

It’s the freelancer’s lot to have to be able to swing at will from the sublime to the ridiculous (or vice versa, I make no  judgements about which is “better”.  Prisoners’ rights or Persian rugs, they both have their appeal). 

When you  earn a living writing, it’s a bit of a luxury to sigh about the tyranny of the blank page.  I’m no tortured artist squeezing my lifeblood  into my art.  I’m unlikely to die romantically of consumption with a leaflet about industrial pumping equipment unfinished on the softly glowing screen of my laptop.  I just have to get on with it. 

It can sometimes help to remember  two golden rules of copywriting:

1. Everyone’s first draft is always terrible, and
2. Editing is easier than writing. 

 So write something – anything -  knowing that it will bear  no relation to what you end up with, and then start fine-tuning it.  Getting the right words in the right order is the fun part of writing, whatever you’re writing about.  It’s the challenge of switching from prison reform to Tekke rugs that makes the job a joy.  

So writing is fine.  Being edited.  That’s what you have to be in the mood for.

My family is now used to my operatic howls of dismay as a piece of text I have lovingly crafted or edited, pings back into the inbox with the jokes excised; the Random Capital Letters which I have painstakingly removed, replaced; the clear, jargon-free prose contaminated.  At which point it’s worth remembering the next  golden rule:

1. No-one gets it absolutely right first time.  Not even you.  So don’t take it personally.

Look at the corrections the client has made with an open mind.  Just as I’ve never done a perfect first draft, I’ve also rarely produced a piece of work that hasn’t been improved by being edited.  The best copy comes when you respect their knowledge of their product and customers and they respect your skills as a writer.  The conversations may be tight-lipped at times, but the end result is always better if you’re both fighting your corner (politely and constructively, of course).

If the process is really painful and the blood pressure starts soaring, remember who’s paying.  And if all else fails, this heartfelt blast about the iniquities of being edited generally raises a smile:

I don’t really like people tinkering with my copy for the sake of tinkering. I do not enjoy the suggestion that you have a better ear or eye for how I want my words to read than I do.

And Amen to that.

Good writing saves lives

The news story that instructions on medicine bottles are being re-written because people find the language they use too complicated, took me back to my first proper job, writing copy for the publicity department of a regional theatre.  I was laughed out of the room for suggesting that we should change the phrase “affix stamp to envelope” on the  letter sent with the season’s brochure to “please use a stamp”.  Affix was the ‘proper’ word to use.  That’s what we were going to stick with.  It was evidently more important to them to sound posh than be understood.  (They also veto-ed my suggested tagline – It’s Swine-sational! – for a Christmas musical based on the children’s book, Fat Pig.  They were idiots and didn’t deserve me.  But it’s OK, I’m over it now.  Really.)

The standard advice given on copywriting courses is to remember that the average reading age of adults in this country is about 11, so you need to  KISS (variously Keep It Simple, Stupid; Keep It Simple, Silly; or Keep It Short and Simple depending on the whim of the trainer).  

Writing short, snappy, clear copy that’s  fun to read and sells a product – or gives advice about how to use a medicine properly –  is much harder than it looks.  Maybe that’s why there is so much copywriting advice available online.  The American site Copyblogger is one of my favourites – its 10 steps to becoming a better writer advice is spot on.  I subscribed to Naomi Dunford’s newsletter for a while, even though it wasn’t particularly relevant for my business, because I liked her bracing ”get off your ass and get down to work” style. 

Copywriting really matters.  Poor writing skills will lose you contracts, customers and sales.  There’s some good advice here about ways to improve your writing - the most effective tip is simply to read.  Lots.  Of all kinds of different writing.  Think about what you enjoy and try to understand why it works.  And if it doesn’t work, try to understand that too.  Medicine bottle-labellers are doing that right now.  Who knows.  If they find the right words it might save someone’s life.

A pedant writes

I’ve been doing a lot of editing recently – it’s annual report season and the hills are alive with the sound of management-speak being committed to paper.

Don’t get me wrong – I’m very glad of the work.  And I do appreciate that great managers aren’t necessarily good writers too.  But in the interests of the English language and my own sanity, can I request that the person who wrote “we are fully committed to embedding and mainstreaming equality and diversity in all our management processes” is sent to the corner wearing a  very large dunce’s cap and left to contemplate the error of his ways (or her ways - I am, of course,  fully committed to…) 

A pox on embedding and mainstreaming; on the random use of transparent, robust and sustainable to make simple things sound grander than they need to be; on  capturing learnings and sharing them at learning events; on the direction of travel and ongoing commitment and outcome focused engagement activity.

This whole editing process  reminds me of skills I used to take  pride in, which are now about as useful  as knowing how to ride a pennyfarthing or where to apply the leeches to cure dropsy. I used to be  able to lay out a page of newsprint, using a series of  mathematical formulae which told the printer exactly where and at what size to place the words and pictures.  I knew how to put together documents for print by cutting in alterations from a block of set type with a scalpel.  I could correct a proof using the right set of editor’s marks.  (Yes I know.  I’m older than God) . 

Now editing and proofing is an entirely on-screen process which is infinitely easier and much less satisfying than it used to be.   Who knew you could feel nostalgic for the feel of printers’ proofs?