{"id":932,"date":"2014-03-04T08:44:44","date_gmt":"2014-03-03T19:44:44","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.kiwistreet.co.nz\/wordpress\/?p=932"},"modified":"2014-03-11T20:23:34","modified_gmt":"2014-03-11T07:23:34","slug":"written-well-gets-read-well","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.kiwistreet.co.nz\/wordpress\/?p=932","title":{"rendered":"Well written gets well read"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"Piano2\"<\/a>Recently, I overheard a captain of industry complaining that a high proportion of the calls to his overworked call centre should not have been necessary.\u00a0 \u2018If customers just read the stuff we send them, they\u2019d already know what they need to know.\u2019\u00a0 Really?<\/p>\n

Given the right piece of prose, I just might be the world\u2019s slowest reader.<\/p>\n

With the right piece of prose, I often find myself savouring each word, each sentence \u2013 even savouring the spaces between the sentences.\u00a0 And sometimes, after perhaps just 15 or 20 pages of quality writing, I find that my appetite is sated \u2013 for the moment, anyway.\u00a0 But I do know exactly<\/i> what I have read.\u00a0 I do understand what the writer is saying.<\/p>\n

Recently, it took me the best part of a week to read a novella \u2013 probably no more that about 18,000 words \u2013 such was the quality of the prose.\u00a0 And it was not the first time that I had read that particular novella.\u00a0 Over the past 20 years, I have probably read it seven or eight times.\u00a0 And I am pretty sure that I will read it again.<\/p>\n

And then there is the average email or other written communication that I receive from my local council or utility or other service provider.<\/p>\n

These tend to take between six and eight seconds to \u2018read\u2019: a couple of seconds to read the opening sentence (blah); a couple of seconds to see if the gibberish has become any clearer by the midpoint (not often); and a quick peruse of the last sentence or two to see if I can discern any need for further action (and it is rare that I can).<\/p>\n

Here\u2019s a tip for all you captains of industry: if you want your customers (and would-be customers) to read your missives, get the very best writers that you can find to write them for you.\u00a0 Not the best salespeople you can find.\u00a0 Not the best sandwich makers you can find.\u00a0 The best writers.<\/p>\n

That way, your intended readers will probably read your missives carefully and attentively.\u00a0 And it will save your organisation thousands of dollars, and possibly hundreds of thousands of dollars.\u00a0 Simple really.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Recently, I overheard a captain of industry complaining that a high proportion of the calls to his overworked call centre should not have been necessary.\u00a0 \u2018If customers just read the stuff we send them, they\u2019d already know what they need … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[3,6,4],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.kiwistreet.co.nz\/wordpress\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/932"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.kiwistreet.co.nz\/wordpress\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.kiwistreet.co.nz\/wordpress\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.kiwistreet.co.nz\/wordpress\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.kiwistreet.co.nz\/wordpress\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=932"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/www.kiwistreet.co.nz\/wordpress\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/932\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":935,"href":"https:\/\/www.kiwistreet.co.nz\/wordpress\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/932\/revisions\/935"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.kiwistreet.co.nz\/wordpress\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=932"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.kiwistreet.co.nz\/wordpress\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=932"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.kiwistreet.co.nz\/wordpress\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=932"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}