by Leslie O'Flahavan | Jun 18, 2023 | Featured, Writing Matters Blog
You want to help your customers, you really do. So you write a gorgeous 75-page User Manual, which answers every conceivable question your customer might have about using your product or service. And then you learn the ugly truth. Nobody reads the User Manual, even...
by Leslie O'Flahavan | May 14, 2023 | Featured, Uncategorized, Writing Matters Blog
Maintaining a knowledge base full of well written articles is as difficult as keeping a preschool playroom tidy. Here’s why. Some KB articles are created to meet an emergency need, and they’re hurriedly, even poorly, written from the day they’re published. Other KB...
by Leslie O'Flahavan | Apr 28, 2023 | Featured, Uncategorized, Writing Matters Blog
I’m not going to lie. Writing a great knowledge base article is a lot of work. Your writing must be precise, concise, and easy-to-read. You must know your topic really well, and then you must try to un-know it, so you can think like your reader—who wouldn’t be reading...
by Leslie O'Flahavan | Mar 15, 2023 | Featured, Writing Matters Blog
A badly written knowledgebase article is like the tainted clam in the linguine. It probably won’t kill you, but you aren’t going to feel very well after eating it. What did that bad clam cost you? Well, you wasted $24.95 on a meal, and no one wants to throw away...
by Leslie O'Flahavan | Feb 9, 2023 | Featured, Writing Matters Blog
A knowledgebase article is like an apple. A fresh, crisp apple makes a wonderful snack, bakes a delicious pie, and brightens a green salad. But a mushy, flavorless apple makes a dreadful snack, bakes a tasteless pie, and ruins a green salad. To improve the dish it’s...
by Leslie O'Flahavan | Jan 5, 2023 | Featured, Writing Matters Blog
Effective service conversations – the basics of writing to customers with Leslie O’Flahavan I loved being interviewed by GrowthDot’s Natalia Zhontsa, who asked me 11 provocative questions and somehow got me talking about a dead airline passenger, customer...
by Leslie O'Flahavan | Dec 7, 2022 | Featured, Writing Matters Blog
Your customer should’ve read your company’s policy before purchasing your product. They kinda lied when they clicked the “I accept” box without reading a word of the fine print. Now, they’re requesting a return, refund, or exception that your policy doesn’t allow....
by Leslie O'Flahavan | Nov 5, 2022 | Featured, Writing Matters Blog
Whether you and your team are working remotely a couple of days per week or you’re remote all day, every day, you’ve probably found that being remote has made you better at some tasks than you were when you worked in an office. Maybe you’re better at actively...
by Leslie O'Flahavan | Oct 3, 2022 | Featured, Writing Matters Blog
While it’s never easy or much fun to tell a customer “no,” you can write it the wrong way—causing write-backs, harming satisfaction, destroying rapport—or the better way. The better way doesn’t mean saying “yes” or making exceptions for super-persistent customers. The...
by Leslie O'Flahavan | Sep 9, 2022 | Featured, Writing Matters Blog
If you can serve a bakery-bought birthday cake at the party you’re hosting for your mother, you can use email templates for customer service without destroying your relationship with your customers. Yes, the words “template,” “script,” and “form letter,” have...
