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Chances are you’ve been on or held a webinar in the last few months. And quite frankly, there are some shockers out there. Endless broadcasts. Tech nightmares. Illegible scribbles on the virtual whiteboard that look like NHS thank you rainbows gone horribly wrong. Love them or hate them, webinars are a fact of our working… ...

What better time for a declutter than the start of a new decade? Here’s our hit list of clichés to cut in 2020, with some suggestions to bring your customer comms bang up to date. 1. Further to your email dated 20 January, I’m writing to… This opening gambit is a sure-fire way to get… ...

Which team has the biggest impact on how customers feel about your brand? Marketing might argue it’s them – after all, it’s their job. So it’s no surprise that brand teams put marketing copy under the microscope, to make sure it’s delivering a consistent brand experience. But what about the contact centre? Contact centre teams… ...

I’ve been chatting to Margot about all things wine. Lidl’s chatbot will help you pick out the right wine, whatever you’re planning to cook or spend. So, how does Margot come across? Is she more suave sommelier or scripted cyborg? Here’s what the words she uses reveal. She’s sophisticated, not snooty Before you even start… ...

  Here are some of the things I hear frequently about writing for millennials. Advance warning: they’re all utter bullshit. “Millennials have really short attention spans, so they won’t read anything over 140 characters.” By this logic, millennials don’t read books. Apart from, say, all the Harry Potter books. You know, if we’re being all… ...

What gives a chatbot personality? Simple: the words it uses. Because when it comes to sounding human, copy is the most important bit of code. You can have the best technology out there, but if you don’t get the words right, your chatbot will leave your customers cold. Here are our top tips for scripting… ...

We’re all lazy listeners. Why would we be anything else? If something’s boring, we switch off. No one does this more publicly than Donald Trump. Whether he’s forgetting to put his hand over his heart during the US national anthem or nodding off during his own inauguration, the leader of the free world has perhaps… ...

United Airlines CEO Oscar Munoz should have offered an unequivocal apology to David Dao, the passenger who was dragged from his seat on an overbooked flight this week.  Instead, Munoz (or his exec team) issued a statement so full of corporatese, it made a bad situation even worse.  Munoz has since described the incident as… ...

At the end of a writing workshop last week, one of our clients said: “That was really useful. I can see how those tips will make our communications much clearer and more interesting. But it wasn’t about tone of voice. It was just good writing.” Despite how contradictory this sounds, I know what she means.… ...

No, we’re not being ironic and no, ‘trendy punctuation’ is not an oxymoron. In the last few years, everyone from celebrity chefs to pop stars to brands have started using trendy typography to make their writing look cool. So sprinkle these symbols into your copy or risk the shame of using punctuation just to break… ...