Giraffe Forum

The importance of getting to the point

In an age when time is the most valuable resource of all, it is vital to lead with the need, to answer the question as quickly and concisely as possible.

Your laptop keeps crashing. It’s driving you insane. You’ve waited for ages on the phone for support and have given up. In desperation, you send an email. Here’s the reply you get:

Dear customer,
Thank you for your feedback. We are continuously working to improve customer satisfaction. Your feedback supports us in doing just that.

Doesn’t it make you feel good to know that the company that sold you this awful laptop is continuously working to improve customer satisfaction and that your feedback is supporting them in achieving that objective?

You’re in a hotel room. You plug in your battery charger for your cell phone. There’s a puff of smoke and you get an electric shock (at no extra charge). Shaking, you pick up the phone and ring reception.
“I think I’ve just been electrocuted!”
“Dear guest,” the receptionist begins, “Thank you for your feedback. We are continuously working to improve customer satisfaction. Your feedback supports us in doing just that.”

You’re not feeling well. You start searching the Web for a variety of symptoms. You arrive at a page on a government health website. It begins:
“Welcome to the health section. Your health is important. Good health helps you flourish as an individual, a citizen, a family member, a worker and a consumer. It’s not nice to be sick.”

You’re in Dublin’s O’Connell Street and you don’t know how to get to Grafton Street. You stop a Garda (Irish police).
“Can you please tell me the way to Grafton Street?”
“Welcome to Dublin,” the Garda begins. Why is he welcoming me to Dublin, you think? I’m already in Dublin. “It’s not nice to be lost,” continues the Garda. “And that is why as part of our duties as Garda Siochana, that’s Irish for Guardians of the Peace, just in case you didn’t know … Well as part of our duties we are trained to give directions so as to show the friendly face of law enforcement …”
“Thanks very much, Garda.”
“Don’t walk away. I haven’t told you yet about our intensive training and how we are continuously working to improve customer satisfaction …”
“I was only joking. Really, I don’t want to go to Grafton Street at all. In fact … I need a coffee. See, coffee shop right in front of me. I have to go in. Goodbye.”

Recently I was thinking of changing my mobile phone provider. I wanted to know if I could keep my number. Here’s the reply I got.

Dear Gerry,
Thank you for contacting O2 Customer Care by email. I’m delighted to hear that you have decided to move to O2, you’re only a few easy steps away from signing up as a customer. Just to advise you, you can move your existing number with your current network to O2.

It’s not easy being in customer support. We customers are demanding and highly impatient. Often, we are annoyed because something has gone wrong with a product we bought or because we can’t find the answer we need on the website. So, please get to the point.

All I needed was:
Dear Gerry,
You can move your existing number with your current network to O2.