Please Be Informed: Communicating Clearly with Customers
10/18/18
Broadway has been around for over 100 years, and it can feel like it sometimes—especially in the ways we communicate with our ticket buyers.
After a customer buys a ticket on Telecharge, we touch base with them a number of times to deliver e-tickets, information on their purchase, theatre tips and policies, late seating notifications, canceled performances and time changes, weather alerts, and more. Usually, these messages are delivered by email, and over the years we’ve gotten a lot better about crafting this info to be clear, concise, and much more digestible.
Ask any customer service expert, and they’ll tell you that if you need to convey important information, it’s better to be direct than overly polite and formal. Don’t worry too much about the “grade level” of your copy (though 6th grade max. is recommended); just focus on telling the customer what’s what.
That can be tough for us artistic types on Broadway. We love to say, “Please be informed that your performance time has changed from 2:00 to 3:00,” when we should be saying, “Your show time has changed. It is now at 3:00.” Sure, it’s not as flowery and polite, but it’s much easier to read.
A quick search online about customer communications brings up the “ELI5 Technique,” or “Explain Like I’m Five.” Basically, before sending any instructions to a customer, read them as if you were five years old and make sure you can follow them. This is especially helpful, for example, when explaining how to download theatre tickets to a smartphone using simple, easy-to-understand language.
Keeping your sentences short and to-the-point helps with customers who don’t pay attention to details or aren’t native English speakers, and it’s been shown that people do prefer a less formal tone in email. But that doesn’t mean politeness goes out the window. A well-placed “please” and “thank you” go a long way; it’s just not necessary to say “please” every time you need a customer to take action.
The more we can adapt our customer service writing to this new “simple” reality, the more effective it will be in letting our ticket buyers know what’s going on—and making sure it sinks in.
For more information on The Shubert Organization, visit www.shubert.nyc.
After a customer buys a ticket on Telecharge, we touch base with them a number of times to deliver e-tickets, information on their purchase, theatre tips and policies, late seating notifications, canceled performances and time changes, weather alerts, and more. Usually, these messages are delivered by email, and over the years we’ve gotten a lot better about crafting this info to be clear, concise, and much more digestible.
Ask any customer service expert, and they’ll tell you that if you need to convey important information, it’s better to be direct than overly polite and formal. Don’t worry too much about the “grade level” of your copy (though 6th grade max. is recommended); just focus on telling the customer what’s what.
That can be tough for us artistic types on Broadway. We love to say, “Please be informed that your performance time has changed from 2:00 to 3:00,” when we should be saying, “Your show time has changed. It is now at 3:00.” Sure, it’s not as flowery and polite, but it’s much easier to read.
A quick search online about customer communications brings up the “ELI5 Technique,” or “Explain Like I’m Five.” Basically, before sending any instructions to a customer, read them as if you were five years old and make sure you can follow them. This is especially helpful, for example, when explaining how to download theatre tickets to a smartphone using simple, easy-to-understand language.
Keeping your sentences short and to-the-point helps with customers who don’t pay attention to details or aren’t native English speakers, and it’s been shown that people do prefer a less formal tone in email. But that doesn’t mean politeness goes out the window. A well-placed “please” and “thank you” go a long way; it’s just not necessary to say “please” every time you need a customer to take action.
The more we can adapt our customer service writing to this new “simple” reality, the more effective it will be in letting our ticket buyers know what’s going on—and making sure it sinks in.
For more information on The Shubert Organization, visit www.shubert.nyc.
Originally published in Broadway Briefing.