by Leslie O'Flahavan | Oct 29, 2019 | Customer Service Writing, Featured, Writing Matters Blog
I admit it. I hate the term “soft skills” and want everyone to stop using it. Right now. It’s vague, it’s dismissive, and it pits “soft” skills against “hard” ones when we know support professionals need both kinds of skills to do their increasingly complicated jobs...
by Leslie O'Flahavan | Jan 13, 2019 | Featured, Social Media Writing Courses, Writing Matters Blog
Wow. It’s been a decade since companies began offering customer service via social media, and we certainly have improved over the years! We’ve shed outsized fears about being criticized by customers in public (gasp). We’re using purpose-built tools...
by Leslie O'Flahavan | Apr 16, 2018 | Featured, Writing Matters Blog
I can picture you. It’s the end of a busy week and you’ve finally carved out an hour or so to do a quality check on the emails your agents send to customers. From the “Sent” pile, you randomly grab a response written by “Marian” and settle in with your QA scorecard to...
by Leslie O'Flahavan | Mar 9, 2016 | Writing Matters Blog
At last, the economy is picking up a little. After a couple of years of “doing more with less,” you may be lucky enough to be hiring. Maybe you’ve spent all morning digging through cover letters, resumes, and writing samples. It’s not easy to...
by Leslie O'Flahavan | Jan 27, 2015 | Writing Matters Blog
Register now for our writing workshop on March 4, 2014 in Washington, DC Today’s web design trends affect more than the way sites look and work; they affect how we write content. Writers are being asked to write less text, to let the images and icons communicate...
by Leslie O'Flahavan | Sep 16, 2014 | Writing Matters Blog
Text messaging isn’t just for pushing parking meter reminders or announcing severe weather. Ahead-of-the-curve companies are using text for two-way communication with customers. At a Denver coffee shop, customers can place their orders and pay by text. A large...
by Leslie O'Flahavan | Dec 17, 2012 | Writing Matters Blog
Many thanks to Karla Taylor of Karla Taylor Communications for interviewing me and writing this article for ASAE’s newsletter Communication News. Sure, it’s a little uncomfortable to air my dirty writing laundry in public, and to see myself talked about in...
by Leslie O'Flahavan | Oct 26, 2011 | Plain Language Writing Courses, Writing Matters Blog
Need to get up to speed on plain language? Interested in improving your own writing skills and learning how to improve the documents you edit for others? Enroll in this practical, hands-on, half-day workshop and gain strategies for writing in plain language. Learn how...
