Call me picky, but ...

This is a bit impressive, isn't it - two posts in one day!  I've just got back in from the latest Black Belt and opened my post to find a customer satisfaction survey from the local council, and the very first paragraph moved me to do a tiny bit of venting ...

Note to local council comms people (i.e. my local council - not everyone from local councils!):

1. If you head your letter 'Your Views Count', it kind of undermines things if your first sentence then says 'All Council's are required to carry out a Customer Satisfaction Survey on a regular basis.' Oh, right. So you're not really that bothered about my views then - you just have to do it?
2. By the way, 'All COUNCIL'S' are not required to carry out a survey.  'All COUNCILS' are.
3. Linked point. 'xyz is the independent research company that are carrying out the survey'. Is it? Or are they? Make your mind up.
4. Getting someone to proof read your comms before they go out might not be a bad idea ...
5. There isn't a point 5. I have to admit to being curious about whether I'd find further gems in there, but after seeing the questionnaire was 15 pages long I'm afraid it went straight in the bin ...

What was Liam saying in his last comment about 'getting the basics right'? 

Sue

Comments

[Simon Wakeman]

Hi Sue,

I head up comms for a council - and the basic English mistakes are very familiar to me - we spend a lot of time preventing them from reaching the printers!

The length of the survey (the place survey) is set by central government I'm afraid - all councils have similar format ones at the moment.

cheers
sw

ps unless you live in Medway, I don't work for your local council!

[Sue]

Hi Simon,

Do you know, I hardly ever write 'huffy'-type posts, and on the odd occasion I do, I then spend the next hour thinking 'oh nooooo ... hope I don't offend anyone!' So now I'm thinking 'dear oh dear, I have, haven't I! I take it all back - all is forgiven!'

Thanks very much for the comment. (And no ... you don't work for my local council!)

Sue

[Liam FitzPatrick]

I can well imagine that councils have to implement a piece of 15 page nonsense (I'm sitting here watching my new garden shed arrive four months after buying it - the delay was due to the need to get planning permission...for a shed).

My government bete noir is the confusion between 'communication' and 'announcing'. For example if you look at much of the law on consultation (in the workplace, in planning etc) all you are often required to do is tell people stuff. Any notion of actually engaging in a constructive or mutually informative discussion is just alien.

However 'putting it out to consultation' is often a good way of either diffusing political tension or avoiding culpability....

Which sort of explains why putting "your views count" on a letter would wind me up...

And anyway, isn't that what elections are for?

Liam

[Fiona Gibson]

In the post this weekend, a letter from our local very expensive gym, owned by a global athletic clothing and footwear company, asking me to 'please except this free pass to use are gym'.... so that's a no then, purely on principle.
F

[Liam FitzPatrick]

And based on that article I showed you on Friday - I blogged http://rickie.typepad.com/simplyblogging/2008/10/you-couldnt-mak.html

Liam