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Customer Experience

Hot off the press: our thoughts on what's happening in the world of brand language and business writing. Warning: may contain the occasional rant.

Customer Experience

The word on the (high) street

While doing my lunchtime errands the other day, I was struck by a hero and a villain of retail language. You can hear both of them in WHSmith (Britain’s big newsagent chain). Their bank of self-service checkouts is called the ‘fast lane’.

Consulting, Customer experience

Customer Experience

In praise of the text

The text message turned twenty last week. What better time for our Nick to write a love song to this unfairly maligned means of communication?

Writing, Customer experience

Customer Experience

Baby food – packs of lies?

Do you agree with sugar-free birthday cakes at children’s parties? I don’t. There’s nothing more disappointing. But what does turn me the colour of acai berry with rage is things that pretend to be good for your baby when they’re not.

Writing, Brand & marketing

Customer Experience

What's wrong with business writing?

We’re not the only ones obsessed with language. So we’re gathering up the who’s who of words. First up, The Economist’s Robert Lane Greene and the advice he’d give to budding writers.

Writing, Brand & marketing

Customer Experience

A bank is just three things

‘There’s not much to a bank you know, except its licence, its computer systems and its reputation.’

Consulting, Brand & marketing

Customer Experience

Please wait while we verify your language

I love self-service tills in supermarkets. For a start, I’m an introvert, so they mean one less human interaction in my day. Also, it’s really satisfying beep-beep-beeping your stuff across the scanner – like when you were little and pretended you worked on a checkout. (Maybe that was just me.)

Consulting, Customer experience