Answer machine messages
Tuesday, January 27, 2009 6:19:22 PM (GMT Standard Time, UTC+00:00)
Listening to Stacey update our answer machine messages today and Darren Ferguson posting on Twitter asking how to write project synopsis' got me thinking about KISS and that people knew what an answer machine was there for now and they didn't need a load of drivel about the fact that we're not here, leave a message, that we'll get back to them as soon as possible, they're just waiting for the beep (a lot of the time these days the provider then explains what to do to re-record your message etc -incidentally, have you ever used that? I've not) so why get in their way.
Although it's not something we've done yet, I'm thinking of changing the company message to something like "You've got through to The Site Doctor, we're not in, leave us a message or email" and that's it. Short, sweet and simple. I'm tempted to go as far as "The Site Doctor is closed, here's the beep" but that might be too blunt.
Why should they differ? People know what they're there for, get them straight to the point and don't fluff around it. BTW if you're interested to know what I think makes a good portfolio write up, again KISS and say as much as possible while writing as little as possible -the client doesn't generally care what technology you're using (9/10 they'll say they want PHP when they meant ASP.Net FWIW) as that's generally gobeldygook to them anyway.
It's also important to keep it as short as possible (unless you're not aiming at them reading it i.e. SEO). The readers not interested in how much trouble you went to, just make sure the following is mentioned (if it's true)!
- How they found you, this can be subtly e.g. "Acme Corp contacted The Site Doctor to." or "Acme Corp was referred to The Site Doctor" -says all it needs no?
- Overview what the general spec was e.g. "We were commissioned to do ABC"
- Overview any successes that you had e.g. "We achieved everything Acme Corp asked of us within the timescales and budgets outlined"
- Without getting too techy, overview how it works and what they can do with it
- Use your company name once or twice but not every time, it's not necessary
As I said, our portfolio doesn't always follow this at the moment but we're working on it. A better example is our paper brochure where we only had 50-100 words per project.