People don’t have time for your waffle
Early on in my career, I worked in complaints. We dealt with loads of them, having a target of at least 5 responses per day. And when you factor in all the time we needed to investigate them, 5 per day was a lot.
This made follow-ups and escalations a real problem. Adding them on too meant that I had less time to investigate and write the 5 responses that I needed to.
Thankfully, I learnt a simple but utterly transformational tip that meant that my responses were 90% less likely to get a follow-up or escalation compared to my colleagues.
I learnt to get to the fucking point.
It sounds simple, and really it is, but it’s genuinely a game changer in terms of communicating with your customers (and, well, anyone).
The Problem? Too much waffle
You see, most people think you need to respond to a complaint like this:
A typical response
Blah.
Here’s the problem. This is what it looks like to the person reading it:
People just want to know whether or not you’ve agreed or disagreed with them. It’s as simple as that.
Sure, understanding your reasonings and your approach is super useful to them, but you’ve just made them sit through your drivel to find out what you actually think.
And so, now they’re frustrated with not only the thing that caused them to complaint in the first place, but also with having to sit through all of that drivel.
Then you hit them with the punchline — you agree with their complaint.
I read all that, just to find out that yes indeed you were wrong and you’re giving me £50 off? Only £50?
Cue another complaint.
The solution? Get to the point first, explain later.
Compare the above to this:
By getting to the point straightaway, we’ve completely reframed the response.
Why this works
Now I’m reading the context whilst fully understanding why the company came to their decision, rather than slogging through it just to see what the damn decision is.
Better still — in this example I’m now reading it in a positive mind-frame: I was right. And people love being right.
Even when you don’t uphold someone’s complaint, this still works, because you aren’t frustrating them by making them swim through treacle before letting them down with a decision they won’t be happy with.
Instead, you’re getting that out the way before carefully explaining why that’s the case. You’re dealing upfront with that tension.
It’s not just for complaints
I’ve used a complaint example here because it’s an easy one for us to be able to see the difference. But this works for anything — whether it’s an email to your boss, a request for help, or a sales email.
In fact, using this tactic, I helped one small business go from getting no responses to their request for sponsors of their event, to being overwhelmed by companies saying ‘yes!’. How?
Simple. We went from:
Hi [company, I’m so-and-so from ACME ltd. and I do this for people which is great because…blah blah… and I’d like you to sponsor my event.
to
Hi, I’m running an event for over 100 people and would love for your company to sponsor it. Why? Well, I’m so-and-so from ACME ltd….
People don’t have time for your waffle. They’re busy. They’re skim reading. Their attention is in constant demand.
Get to the point and you’ll stand out from the cancfphony of crap communicators out there. And you’ll save yourself time.
Simple.
