Beware TMI - No One Cares

It's not just excess personal stuff that can become annoying. It's corporate stuff; business information; the greeting on your voicemail; the overhead announcement at the supermarket. The secret to effective information dispersal is: edit out the noise.

Remember, when you communicate information, your goal is to inform. Your goal is not to make anyone feel better about their life, it's not to coddle customers, it's not to make excuses for why you can't come to the phone. It's simply to point to where the escalator is, to inform the public of your business hours, to notify customers that you've run out of cheese (if you're a pizza parlor).

Here's what I mean.

You call your bank because you found an extra $10,000 in your account and now you're terrified because it's not yours. Your call gets funneled into a queue. The recorded message says, "Your call is important to us. Please hold because right now we're helping someone else who's more important than you are. Your call will be answered by the first available customer service representative. However, due to unprecedented heavy call volume, your call will be answered in ... (digital voice) twenty-three minutes. (recorded voice) Should you wish to have us call you back, please press one now."

First of all, my call is not important to them because they have chosen not to hire enough people to handle the phone traffic. Secondly, just sitting through this laundry list of excuses is worse than listening to hold music. Thirdly, do we really care - or even need to know what you're doing that's causing you not to be able to take our call? We don't care. Nevertheless, we have to sit through you telling us that you're not out for brunch, you're not having wild sex in the cleaning closet, you are in fact helping other, more important, customers. 

Is anyone out there? If you don't come to the phone right now, I'm going to spend your $10,000.

(c) 2016 Suzann Kale