by Leslie O'Flahavan | Nov 15, 2024 | Whitepapers & Tools
The Quality Review Tool presents seven industry-tested standards for e-mail quality and explains what constitutes excellent performance on each standard. Use the Quality Review Tool to score customer service agents’ e-mails, coach agents, improve writing skills,...
by Leslie O'Flahavan | Nov 15, 2024 | Whitepapers & Tools
We developed this social media writing guide for the Centers for Disease Control. While the examples will be most relevant to health communicators, the guidance about writing for social media is practical for any organization that wants to provide high quality social...
by Leslie O'Flahavan | Nov 15, 2024 | Whitepapers & Tools
Months before the hectic holiday shopping season, we decided to conduct an experiment to find out which online retailer does customer service e-mail best. We sent the same e-mail query to seven big-name retailers that sell a certain toy croquet set we were interested...
by Leslie O'Flahavan | Oct 29, 2024 | Featured, Writing Matters Blog
[This article was originally published by WordRake.] If you’re a heartbroken poet living in an unheated garret in Paris, there’s no doubt your writing process includes suffering: the hours you spend gazing out the window, the inky splotches your fountain pen leaves on...
by Leslie O'Flahavan | Sep 9, 2024 | Featured, Writing Matters Blog
If you were building a playground for your local elementary school, you’d never install swings with chains that pinch little fingers or a teeter-totter that catapults kindergarteners into the air. A dangerous playground guarantees that half the kids end up in the...
by Leslie O'Flahavan | Aug 12, 2024 | Featured, Writing Matters Blog
To write great knowledge base articles, you should think like a tailor. To make a bespoke suit jacket, a tailor takes many measurements, everything from the width of the shoulders to the circumference of the wrist. All those measurements enable the tailor to create a...
by Leslie O'Flahavan | Jun 30, 2024 | Featured, Writing Matters Blog
[This article was originally published by WordRake.] I’m weird. I love editing. With a finished draft in hand, I’m eager to ask myself editing questions like “Is this document convincing?”, “Have I given too much detail or just enough?”, and “Have I written in plain...
by Leslie O'Flahavan | Jun 11, 2024 | Featured, Writing Matters Blog
“Too long, uncaring, and off-brand.” Three criticisms you never want to hear about your social media responses to customers! But it can be difficult to write posts that are short enough, empathetic enough, and on-brand when you have hundreds of cranky customers...
by Leslie O'Flahavan | May 6, 2024 | Featured, Writing Matters Blog
[This article was originally published by WordRake.] “How hungry is my reader?” When we sit down to write a web page, report, proposal, or blog post, we’re often plagued by uncertainty about our readers’ appetite for our content. Am I writing for a headline-only...
by Leslie O'Flahavan | Mar 25, 2024 | Featured, Writing Matters Blog
A version of this blog first appeared on the North Bridge Group website. Publication date: March 10, 2024 You’re a CSR, and there’s so much you hate about your job. Customers shriek at you all day. Your boss’s expectations are unreasonable: “Answer faster! Reply...
