How To Sound Professional, the Easy Way
10.31.07 | Filed under Advertising, Other.
I visit forums on a daily basis, for troubleshooting or discussion on popular web design trends and issues. In my travels I see a lot of posts by Moderators and Administrators: this is a good thing, but the way some of them communicate leaves something to be desired. I’m talking about sounding professional and polite. It’s good business, it builds quality relationships, and it attracts respect and honor. And it’s easy. I’m going to drop a few hints on how to sound more professional.
Grammar and Punctuation are the keys.
Here’s a scenario to look at as an example: a forum user posts something: “i can’t upload my display pic. It’s 400×600, under the upload size limit. What’s up with that?”
A fair question. Obviously, the problem is the avatar the user wants to upload is too large, and can’t be resized by the forum software. The administrator comes online, sees the post, and decides to reply. He posts the folowing message: “well you can only upload 100×100 pics. it won’t cut it down for you, so you have to resize it yourself.”
The administrator got the message across, but the person probably came away from the encounter with a less-than-thrilled impression of the website and it’s management, especially if he/she was new to the community. This is a simple enough danger, but you’d be surprised at how many forum threads go like that.
The key to communicating in a professional manner is using proper grammar and punctuation. If it were me answering the above question from a new user, I would put it something like this: “That’s a good question. This forum allows avatars that are 100×100 or less. Since your image is larger than that, the upload won’t succeed. If you have any more problems, please don’t hesitate to post them here.”
There, that sounded better, didn’t it? I used proper punctuation and capitalization, and decent grammar. I also extended the message’s size with some extra wording, which added some feeling to the post.
Don’t be afraid of being wordy.
It’s better to be long and eloquent than short and snappy. You want your users to receive a positive feeling from what you say to them, even if it takes twice as much time to compose your messages. In the end you’ll receive more supporters and readers.
Do your research.
If someone asks a question or expresses their point of view on a topic you’re not very familiar with, google it. Don’t dash off a hasty message that doesn’t contribute anything to the discussion, and leaves the readers with a bad impression of you and your knowledge. If you can’t add anything to the thread, don’t. It’s as simple as that. And if you feel you have to say something, don’t be afraid to admit your ignorance. Apologize. Try to make it up to the users. Do everything you can to create a positive atmosphere.
That’s all I have to say on this. If you have anything to say about this, or if you disagree with anything I’ve said, please post a comment below.
Shane
11.5.07
6:21 pm
Very good, but you might want to add slightly more ways on how to sound professional e.g. expand your vocabulary using dictionarys or books, just read though some good books and see how they change words from “this is a good morning” to “Todays morning is magnificent”.
Thanks for posting this.
Bye!