Why you can't take the human out of business communication

I don’t know about you, but I believe that you can never take the human out of business communication.

By this I mean, you can’t just throw any old crap up on your website or social media, and expect that this will do for your business.

We all know that it’s hard enough to attract customers to your business at all, let alone to achieve their interest and some follow up contact with your business.

Throwing words at them that are patronising, unhelpful or written by a robot will send people away from your business quicker than you can say AI.

A good example is the current condescending idiocy around “financial difficulty” in the Australian banking industry.

We all hate banks, but they’re certainly not building any bridges with the patronizing and inappropriate “financial difficulty” information they’ve pushed on to their websites. Hypocritically, they’re also broadcasting this information to customers in emails announcing the latest interest rate hike.

As an example, one bank’s website I looked at mentions their “Hardship Department” and states that they understand that going through a hard time is “when you need someone on your side the most.”

Now I don’t know about you, but I’m certainly not going to call my bank’s call centre when I need someone on my side. And nor should I, for eff’s sake.

I can manage my own finances and I don’t want to read or see financial difficulty plastered all over my bank’s website. We all know that if shit happens in life, you can contact your bank to reconfigure your mortgage repayments for a while if you really have to. That’s been the case forever, and why we have to be insulted with continual references to financial difficulty these days is nothing short of offensive. Especially when a bank exists to make a profit, charges interest rates to maximise that profit, and is most definitely not a counselling service with your best interests at heart.

They just need to stop offending the good hard working people of Australia. And the world, if banks are doing this in other countries too.

But it’s not just banks that repel people with the information they put up on their website. Small businesses do this too without meaning to, which results in terrible wasted opportunities.

Websites, and social media to some extent, are a beautiful 24 hour a day 365 day a year opportunity.

There should never be any bland or poorly written text presented by a business, because this prevents a connection with one’s clients and customers, and allows you to build ongoing relationships.

One’s hard working customers and clients must always be honoured with website and social media text that shows them immediately that they are valued and respected as human beings, and that gives them value at every turn.