Live: The Right to Understand: How Plain Language Improves Customer Experience
taught by: Leslie O'Flahavan
Session Summary
When we contact a company's Customer Service department for help with a product or service, we have a right to understand their reply, but many companies disregard accessibility when they reply to customers via email, live chat, social media, and other help channels. This session will show how writing to customers in plain language advances accessibility.
Description
When we contact a company's Customer Service department for help with a product or service, we have a right to understand their reply. But many companies disregard accessibility when they reply to customers via email, live chat, social media, and other help channels. They fail to make their replies accessible to customers with disabilities related to vision, hearing, mobility, or cognition. And they compound this inaccessibility by failing to use plain language in their replies, which can be loaded with insider's jargon, legal language, and bureaucratese. Too often, companies' replies leave customers wondering, "But what should I do?," "What will you do to help me?," and "Why are you so hostile? I just spent my money on your product??!" This session will show how writing to customers in plain language advances accessibility.
Practical Skills
- Participants will learn how writing to customers in plain language enables them to understand makes transactional information understandable.
- Participants will learn to recognize 5 customer service writing practices that make companies' responses to customers inaccessible.
- Participants will learn 5 plain language best practices that enable companies to write emails, live chats, and social media responses to customers that are accessible, understandable, and usable.