by Leslie O'Flahavan | Aug 5, 2021 | Uncategorized
On Fridays at 12 pm Eastern, Deborah Bosley, owner of The Plain Language Group, and I are hosting the Plain Language Weekly Club on Clubhouse. Please join us! Our casual, candid conversations include people from all corners of the plain language world: consultants,...
by Leslie O'Flahavan | Aug 4, 2021 | Uncategorized, Writing Matters Blog
Setting the right tone in email writing is more than just choosing the right wine to go with the meal. Tone in email – how you say what you say – is so important that an inappropriate tone can cause a reader to ignore, delete, or overreact to your message. A versatile...
by Leslie O'Flahavan | Jul 27, 2021 | Writing Matters Blog
If you’ve ever had to endure customers’ negative comments about your company or products on social media, you may be giving Larry Hogan, Governor of Maryland, a round of applause for his response to Heather, a follower of his official Facebook page. She wrote, “We’re...
by Leslie O'Flahavan | Jun 18, 2021 | Featured, Uncategorized, Writing Matters Blog
A gracious response may help to win over an unhappy customer and demonstrate that you’re listening and you care. Sometimes social media feels like the mean kids’ table in the lunchroom at middle school. Everybody’s talking dirt about someone else. And once the gossip...
by Leslie O'Flahavan | Jun 5, 2021 | Writing Matters Blog
Customer service chat is popular with companies and customers alike. It’s easy, it’s quick, and it works well on mobile devices. But easy and popular doesn’t always equal good. Read this chat with customer service agent “Jack” at Vizio....
by Leslie O'Flahavan | Feb 7, 2021 | Writing Matters Blog
Someone needs to tell Verizon: “Customer service chat is supposed to help the customer.” Read through the transcript of this truly painful chat, and you’ll hardly believe your eyes. The customer, Marianne, endures: One hour and 17 minutes of chat...
by Leslie O'Flahavan | Aug 24, 2020 | Uncategorized
Webinar 1 Where to find plain language award winners and heroes: Plain English Awards The Center for Plain Language is a 501(c)(3), non-profit organization. We help organizations create information that’s easier to understand. https://plainlanguage.gov...
by Leslie O'Flahavan | Aug 16, 2020 | Uncategorized
We’ve all experienced the highs and lows of having a personal virtual network. We enjoy the highs—reconnecting on Facebook with your best friend from high school—and we suffer the lows—scrolling through a cousin’s Instagram pics of every plate of food she’s ever...
by Leslie O'Flahavan | Jul 30, 2020 | Writing Matters Blog
For years, customer care organizations have been as scared of social media as water-phobic summer campers staring at the high dive. “What if customers gang up on us? What if we get trolled? What if one of our agents gives the wrong answer and all 25,000 followers see...
by Leslie O'Flahavan | Jul 27, 2020 | Writing Matters Blog
Predicting the death of email may seem risky for a consultant who helps frontline customer service agents improve their writing skills, but I’m here and I’m doing it. Throughout the 2000s and the 2010s, email was the workhorse customer service channel—an easy, modern...
