Communication is a two-way street

Posted on | November 26, 2008 | Comments Off

At times I make fairly heavy weather about the fact that I’m a journalist. That’s because I’m self-conscious about Dawn-the-Reporter — but that’s another story.

In fact, more than a journalist, I’m a writer. As such, here’s something I know about writing: writing is a tool for communication.

Yes, I know. Seems blindingly obvious, doesn’t it? But there’s more to it than that.

Writing something, anything, is a two-way street because communication is a two-way street. Whether you have written a novel or an article or a blog post or an email or a tweet, the act of writing feels incomplete until you know that what you have written has been read, understood and, in the best of all possible worlds, acted upon.

Even if the ‘acted upon’ part consists of nothing more than an @reply or a comment or a return email that says ‘I got your email.’

That’s why, in this story, the worst thing about the entire episode was not the flaw in the product. It was the fact that there seemed to be nobody on the other end of the communication to simply say, ‘I heard you.’

‘I’m sorry,’ would have been better.

‘Geez, we’re embarrassed that you had that trouble with our product. How about this nice $5 coupon to make up for it,’ would have been better still.

People really aren’t hard to understand. When they have a question, they want an answer. When they have a problem, they want a solution. When they tell you that you screwed up, they want you to at least say ‘Oops!’

They want to have a say. And, when they’ve had their say, they want to know that their words have not simply vanished into the void.

They want, very simply, to know that they matter to you.

That’s not so very much to ask, is it? After all, your customers give you money in exchange for your product. You don’t want to leave them with the impression that, now that you have their money, all you really want is for them to go away.

After all, without them … where would you be?


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Category: Politics


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