Entries by Matt Wright

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BLT, 25th Oct 18: Customer Service – What do you do to keep your customers coming back?

STARTER QUESTION: DESCRIBE AN EXAMPLE OF EXCELLENT CUSTOMER SERVICE

The ‘Starter Question’, posed to all the BLT participants around the table at the outset of the meeting helps to set the scene for the main topic.

First of all, what is “Customer service”?

“Customer service is the act of taking care of the customer’s needs by providing and delivering professional, helpful, high quality service and assistance before, during, and after the customer’s requirements are met.” 

SOURCE: Study.com

Furthermore, Study.com suggest that characteristics of good customer service can be summarised by the 4 Ps:

  • Promptness: Delays and cancellations of products should be avoided.
  • Politeness: Use good manners whether the customer makes a purchase or not.
  • Professionalism: Treat all customers with the competence or skill expected of the professional.
  • Personalisation: Customers like the idea that who they do business with knows them on a personal level.

The common theme around the table regarding “Excellent Customer Service” was that of ‘Personalisation’, which was deemed to be most effective in converting customers into advocates. read more read more

October 25, 2018 /0 Comments/by
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Henley Literary Festival: The Good, The Bad, and The Ugly – what we can learn from structuring presentations.

Not all authors are created equal.

However, with a little pre-planning, all authors should be able deliver a decent performance at a Literary Festival, where (let’s face it) the audience is rarely hostile. 

Having recently attended the Henley Literary Festival, I’ve witnessed The Good, The Bad, and The Ugly when it comes to author presentations. Read on…

Henley Literary Festival - Austin Mitchell

1. The Good: Crime & Wine Evening / Kate Humble “Thinking on my feet”

Two very different set-ups were at work here:

  • Panel discussion (3 writers + moderator) – same question asked to all 3 writers and discussed.
  • Traditional 1-on-1 author/moderator – complete with passage readings.

Both worked equally well…because the format was right for each talk…and because in each case the moderator was very effective.

To save time (and space!) I’ll bullet point the key highlights of each:

Kate Humble, “Thinking on my feet”

Thinking on my feet

  • Book written in a chronological format (365 separate diary entries – one for each day of the year) so it was easy to jump around and keep the readings seasonal.
  • Short readings to illustrate points – surprisingly, not many writers tend to read any of their work out loud at Literary Festivals…which is a bit of a shame given the work has gone into them!
  • A conversation between writer & moderator – it does help when they know each other and when the moderator is a professional broadcaster (as was the case here – Beverley Turner), but with a little preparation, some common ground is always possible – it makes the audience feel it is listening to a conversation rather than just being spoken to.

Wine & Crime:

  • Interesting themed questions:The importance of location in crime novels? How much research is required? How does the period in which the novel is set influence the plot?….etc.
  • Interaction between participants: Always better if there’s a bit of a debate going on (within moderation); makes it seem less like a lecture.

Vaseem Khan, “The Unexpected Inheritance of Inspector Chopra”

Jessica Fellowes, “The Mitford Murders”

[Note: there was another author present…but I can’t remember her name, nor can I find it on the internet – sorry!]

2. The Bad: River Readings, WW1 Poetry & Prose

I had attended these River Readings on previous occasions (basically whenever I could get my hands on tickets!) and they had always been one of the highlights of the Festival for me. read more read more

October 18, 2018 /0 Comments/by
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BLT: Ideal Client Case Study – what does yours look like?

Describe your best Client Case Study? What does success look like? How do you go about replicating this?

These were the questions pondered at the latest BLT meeting. 

STARTER QUESTION: WHO IS YOUR IDEAL CLIENT?

The ‘Starter Question’, posed to all the BLT participants around the table to at the outset of the meeting, is frequently unrelated to the main topic…but today it wasn’t! Hence, it helped to set the scene nicely for the core issue of ‘Best Case Study’.

Responses – Who is your Ideal Client?

• Clients who are prepared to accept my advice.
• Those who value ‘good’ work.
• Clients who don’t know what they want so they can allow themselves to be helped (coaching).
ALTERNATIVELY
• Clients who do know what they want so they can instruct me properly!(copywriting) read more read more

October 17, 2018 /0 Comments/by

The Dozenal Society: It’s counting Jim, but not as we know it!

“The merits of base twelve are due to the great factorability of the number twelve…ten is unsatisfactory because its factors 2 and 5 include the prime 5…”

http://www.dozenalsociety.org.uk

“It’s counting Jim but not as we know it”

The Dozenal Society of Great Britain advocates that we count in 12s rather than 10s (i.e. in base 12) since 12 is divisible by many more factors and this would be more efficient for day-to-day living.

How?

  • Two new numerals would be created to replace the existing numerals ’11’ and ’12’.
  • The existing numeral ’10’ would represent ’12’.
  • Hence, likewise ‘100’ would represent ‘144’

Why?

  • Ancient civilisations frequently used different bases; e.g. the Babylonians had a base of 60 numerals
  • Computers communicate in base 2 (binary)
  • Colour codings are represented in base 16 (hexadecimal)
  • 12 is divisible by 2,3,4 and 6, whilst 10 is only divisible by 5 and 10 (of which 5 is a prime number).

The dozenal movement began in the 17th century when mathematicians began to question the appropriateness of a number system based on something as arbitrary as the fact that we have ten fingers.

Celebrated advocates included Issac Pittman, who invented the system of shorthand still in use today. read more read more

October 15, 2018 /0 Comments/by

Grammar: All about (W)

WGrammar: Which word to use (W)

https://www.theguardian.com/guardian-observer-style-guide-w

1. CORRECT USAGE

1.1. Similar words mean different things…

waiver or waver?

To waive is to relinquish a claim or right. The associated noun is waiver, which can lead to confusion with waver, meaning to hesitate (or a person waving).

weave (fabric) or weave (from side to side)

weave (fabric)  past tense wove, past participle woven, as in “Obama’s speech was woven throughout with the language of the US constitution”. 

weave (from side to side) past tense weaved, past participle weaved, as in “the politician dodged and weaved”. read more read more

October 15, 2018 /0 Comments/by

Grammar: All about (V)

VGrammar: Which word to use (V)

https://www.theguardian.com/guardian-observer-style-guide-v

1. CORRECT USAGE

1.1. Similar words mean different things…

venal or venial

venal open to bribery; venial easily forgiven

1.2 Use the right word in context…

venerable 

worthy of reverence, not just old.

verdicts 

recorded by coroners, returned by inquest juries.

virus

not the same as a bacterium, but we often confuse the two.

2. SPELLINGS

v for versus, not vs: England v Australia, Rochdale v Sheffield Wednesday, etc.

2.1 To hyphenate (or not)?

YES

vice-chair, vice-chancellor, vice-president

vis-a-vis

EXCEPTIONS

2.2 One word or two?

One word

voiceover

Two words

venetian blind

vice versa read more

October 1, 2018 /0 Comments/by
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Look at that ‘S’ car go! Sorry, I meant ‘escargot’ [French food derivations]

The French influence on the English language

Think you’re not very good at languages?

Well, almost 1/3rd of English words come from French, which means that you’re already conversant…in fact semi-fluent if you were to chose to stick to culinary and food terms. 

A little bit of history…

After the Norman Conquest of 1066 (remember William the Conquerer?), Anglo-Norman (old French) became the language of the elite in the UK. For the next 300 years or so, this was the language which the British elite used to distinguish itself from rest of the general populace.

Hence why you still come across a vast amount of of French words in current usage when you talk about luxury, food or boring things like the law.

Where does our food come from?

As already noted, food and cooking terms remain heavily influenced by French, especially those terms which have become anglicised over the years. read more read more

September 24, 2018 /0 Comments/by
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BIO 2018: Style Sheets as planning tool for Conference Writing

A style sheet is a file or form that is used in word processing and desktop publishing to define the layout style of a document. A style sheet contains the specifications of a document’s layout, such as the page size, margins, fonts and font sizes.

Source: Techopedia

Why are Style Sheets so important?

Create a unified voice – this is important when there are multiple writers, each of whom may have a different way of presenting something; e.g. dates – could be expressed as Sep-18, September 2018, 14/9/18…etc.
Branding for the event and its sponsors – when an event has a number of sponsors, it’s important to ensure those names are written out correctly, especially as they will be promoted across a range of different medium, including the sponsor’s own website…therefore mis-spellings are not an option!

Improve efficiency read more

September 15, 2018 /0 Comments/by

Grammar: All about (U)

UGrammar: Which word to use (U)

https://www.theguardian.com/guardian-observer-style-guide-u

1. CORRECT USAGE

1.1. Similar words mean different things…

uninterested or disinterested?

uninterested means not taking an interest; not synonymous with disinterested, which means unbiased, objective.

1.2 Use the right word in context…

unique

uninterested one of a kind, so cannot be qualified as “absolutely unique”, “very unique”, etc.

until

not “up until”.

used

He used to do something, not he did use to do something and certainly not he did used to do something (double imperfect); eg “High street shops did, it’s true, used to be more varied” – would read better as “High street shops certainly used to be more varied”. read more read more

September 15, 2018 /0 Comments/by