Client communication: Difference between revisions

Client communication (view source)

Revision as of 16:01, 7 December 2021

49 bytes removed , 7 December 2021

no edit summary

Amwelladmin

Bureaucrats, Interface administrators, Administrators

82,387

edits

@@ Line 1: / Line 1: @@
-{{a|devil|[[File:biblical outreach.png|450px|frameless|center]]}}When engaged in the tiresome business of one-way customer communications, bear a few things in mind. This applies whether you are a law firm writing [[Client alert|client bulletins]] (or for presenting [[Law firm seminar|seminars]]), or a [[client outreach]] team designing mass-mailshots to comply with financial services regulation.
+{{a|devil|[[File:biblical outreach.png|450px|frameless|center]]}}When engaged in the business of one-way customer communications, bear a few things in mind. This applies whether you are a law firm writing [[Client alert|client bulletins]] (or for presenting [[Law firm seminar|seminars]]), or a [[client outreach]] team designing mass-mailshots to comply with financial services regulation.
-=== Client communications are some kind of damage limitation exercise===
+''Speak it softly'': it applies, with like vigour, to ''[[Contract|customer contracts]]'' — but that is a bridge too far for most in the legal community.
-Even if they are not, specifically, a damage-limitation exercise, if you are writing to all of your customers at once, your news is either outright bad — you’ve screwed something up — or [[tedious|''tedious'']] — regulations have changed and there is some stuff you need to know — or ''annoying'' — there is something we forgot to tell you, or we need to ask you to do.
-In most cases, if your customers care at ''all'' about your letter, they will care a lot less about it than you do. No-one sends out client comms for the hell of it: usually they will be instigated by a regulator or your [[compliance]] team, and in neither case will your customers be very interested in them. Perhaps they ''should'' be, but they ''won’t'' be.
+Now: even if they are not ''specifically'' a damage-limitation exercise, if practice they always are: if you are writing to all of your customers at once, your news is either ''outright bad'' — “we’ve screwed something up” — or [[tedious|''tedious'']] — “regulations have changed and there is some stuff you need to know, say or do” — or ''annoying'' — “there is something we forgot to tell you, or we need to correct in what we’ve already told you”.
-Since your tidings will be somewhere between irrelevant and exasperating, assume your readers, being human, will react by ignoring them, being confused by them, being irritated by them, or being confused ''and'' irritated by, and therefore ignoring, them.
+If your customers care at ''all'' about your letter, they will care a lot less about it than ''you'' do. Perhaps they ''should'' be, but they ''won’t'' be.
+So, since your tidings will be somewhere between irrelevant and exasperating, assume that if your customers react at all , being confused by them, being irritated by them, or being confused ''and'' irritated by, and therefore ignoring, them.
 Your job is to  minimise the risk of your customers’ confusion, irritation, and inattention. Here are some rules to help you.