Writing as Customer Service

Every time you communicate with a client, partner or vendor, you are acting as your company's customer service representative. The way you communicate will go a long way toward forming the recipient's opinion of us as a company. Therefore, it's critical that we all understand the meaning of customer service in daily communication.

Just remember three simple rules -
1) Be prompt
2) Be honest
2) Keep your promise

Think about all the times you've contacted a company about some product or service. In today's instant-response world, you are impatient, are you not? You want an answer yesterday. In the long history of the world, no problem has ever been more critical than the one you're facing at the moment, right? Well, you're not alone.

If someone e-mails you and asks for assistance, the best response is a quick response, even if you don't have time to address the matter at the moment. A nice "Thank you for your message. I will be in touch with you soon to address your concern." That acknowledges the message and lets the sender know that the concern didn't just enter the Black Hole of e-mail inquiries.

Now - here's the hard part. Keep your promise. Get back to the sender as soon as possible, even if only to ask more questions or update him or her on your progress regarding the request. If there is one thing a person hates worse than being ignored, it's being lied to.

It's also important to personalize your message as much as possible. This will indicate to the sender that you actually read the message before responding.

Let's have a few examples, shall we? Tell me which of these you prefer:

"Thank you for your message. The matter has been forwarded to our customer service department, which will review your message on a first-come, first served basis. Please stay tuned for a reply and, again, thanks for writing."

OR

"Dear Tom, Just got your message. I thank you for writing. Let me review this with the team and get back to you tomorrow. Talk to you soon!"

The second answer is SO much better. Why? I'm a person with a name, and somebody noticed that. Great! Of course, if Tom doesn't here from you tomorrow, all of the goodwill you have created is gone. Keep your promises! That is critical.

You could learn a lot from Abraham Lincoln

America's 16th president is considered great for a number of reasons, not least of which were his skills as a writer and public speaker. Even today, more than 100 years after his death, Abraham Lincoln serves as an example of the kind of writer we should all strive to be. His Gettysburg Address is the ultimate model for writing effectively.

Lincoln was invited to dedicate a memorial at Gettysburg, Pennsylvania, for the many men who lost their lives in a famous Civil War battle on that hallowed ground. The invitation was an afterthought, and Lincoln wasn't even the featured speaker. That honor went to Edward Everett, who was considered the greatest public speaker of his day. Yet it is Lincoln's speech the is remembered today.

Why?

Because Lincoln was able to capture the meaning of the ceremony in just a few minutes. He was able to speak directly to the hearts of everyone gathered. While Everett's speech was long and rambling, free of emotion and full of dates and facts about the battle being commemorated, Lincoln spoke to the central theme and its relevance to the nation.

Capital punishment

One of the biggest offenses we see by writers, particularly when writing for online media, is the rampant overuse of capitalization. This plague can be seen in every form of written online communication from personal e-mails to formal writing meant for public consumption. Netiquette has long taught us that capitalization is SHOUTING and should be avoided. It can perhaps be used sparingly for emphasis, as in the following message: I am ENRAGED by people who say that their vote doesn't count.

Personal messages are one thing. But when it comes to writing pieces for online publication, there are some hard and fast rules for capitalization that you need to follow.

Headlines - Don't Capitalize Every First Letter - It's Just Silly
Headlines are no different than sentences except that they usually come in bigger size fonts and have the important job of attracting the readers to your writing. So, why would the rules be any less stringent? When writing a headline, you don't capitalize anything that you wouldn't capitalize in a regular sentence. The practice of capitalizing every first letter in a headline is a serious impediment to your readers and therefore to you as well.

Example of a headline done correctly:
CEO of Target calls K-Mart 'ghetto fabulous'
CEO is an acronym, so all letters are capitalized; Target and K-Mart are company names, so they are uppercase as well.

Example of a headline done incorrectly:
CEO Of Target Calls K-Mart 'Ghetto Fabulous'
There is absolutely no grammatical reason to capitalize "of," "calls," "ghetto" or "fabulous" here or anywhere else.