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{{a|devil|[[File:biblical outreach.png|450px|frameless|center]]}}When engaged in the business of customer communications, whether you are a [[law firm]] composing [[Client alert|client bulletins]] and [[Law firm seminar|seminars]], a [[client outreach]] team creating mail-shots to meet financial services regulations or — ''speak it softly'': preparing [[Contract|customer contracts]]; you know, ''actual legal [[verbiage]]''<ref>While true, considering contracts as a form of client communication to be dressed up and somehow made presentable is regarded as, if not a type of mental illness, then a bridge too far, by most in the [[legal community]].</ref> — there is a lot to be said for getting your tone and presentation right. | {{a|devil|[[File:biblical outreach.png|450px|frameless|center]]}}{{a|work| | ||
[[File:biblical outreach.png|450px|frameless|center]] | |||
}}A mass-communication of something ''important'' — “importance” being in the eye of the beholder — to your whole client base. How a firm does this is a measure of its commercial sophistication, first, its technological sophistication, second, and its [[client communications|communication skill]], third. | |||
The usual means is to get a dedicated “client outreach” team to handle it by mass-market mailshot. | |||
===Is it ''really'' that important?=== | |||
The [[professional managerial class]]’s structural self-obsession is such that it sees its own role as a sacred calling of utmost importance to the future safety and good order of the political economy itself. The management class does not so much ''have trouble seeing the wood for the trees'', as ''understanding there is a wood at all''. “All there is ''this'' tree. ''My'' tree. The one with many thin branches, supporting many fat birds, like ''me''.” | |||
Through this prism, one is well insulated from the realities beyond the tree’s crown. The self-involved rarely perceive the reception their communications will get once they cross that threshold and goes out into the wide world.<ref>I know, I know: “look at yourself, o weirdo, you and your one-man wiki, publishing into the void.”</ref> If you are lucky, this will be studied indifference. | |||
So first, ask: ''do we ''really'' need to communicate this to clients?'' Will [[Chicken-licken|the sky fall in on our heads]] if we do not? | |||
===Is [[bulk email]] the right way to do it?=== | |||
Assume it is. | |||
Then ask: okay, that being the case, do you really want to do that by ''[[spam]]''? Now here the size and public orientation of your business will be determinative. If you are a retail bank mailing six million people about a change to the terms and conditions of their current accounts, then ''absolutely'' you want to be doing this by spam. The more spam-like the better. The main objective of client outreach to retail clients is to say, “[[look, I tried]]”.<ref>Cynics might say this is really means “no bulk communication to retail clients is ever that important.” There is an element of truth to that.</ref> | |||
If you are an [[investment bank]], your clients will pay you revenue in the hundreds of thousands or millions a year. If something is important enough to tell a million dollar client, it is worth doing in person. Have your sales people [[Talk, don’t email|call]]. This is called [[relationship management]]. | |||
==Rules of the road== | |||
When engaged in the business of customer communications, whether you are a [[law firm]] composing [[Client alert|client bulletins]] and [[Law firm seminar|seminars]], a [[client outreach]] team creating mail-shots to meet financial services regulations or — ''speak it softly'': preparing [[Contract|customer contracts]]; you know, ''actual legal [[verbiage]]''<ref>While true, considering contracts as a form of client communication to be dressed up and somehow made presentable is regarded as, if not a type of mental illness, then a bridge too far, by most in the [[legal community]].</ref> — there is a lot to be said for getting your tone and presentation right. | |||
However much there ''is'' to be ''said'', the state of contemporary professional services literature suggests not much of it is habitually ''listened to'', so those who do listen have a chance to set their communications above all the others. | However much there ''is'' to be ''said'', the state of contemporary professional services literature suggests not much of it is habitually ''listened to'', so those who do listen have a chance to set their communications above all the others. | ||
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{{sa}} | {{sa}} | ||
*[[Law firm seminar]] | *[[Law firm seminar]] | ||
*[[Email]] | |||
*[[Dear Client]] | |||
*[[Please be advised]] | |||
*[[Talk, don’t email]] | |||
{{ref}} | {{ref}} | ||
{{c|Communication}} | {{c|Communication}} | ||