What's all this about Plain English?

We'll teach you how to write in Plain English.
Why? Because it saves you time and money.

Plain English means presenting information in a way that the target readership can read, understand and act upon with a single reading.

People read Plain English quicker, understand better, and remember longer.

• More efficient procedures

• Improve productivity

• Reduce complaints

• Fewer support calls

• Increase customer understanding and satisfaction.

• Increase sales and cash flow (see below).

Independent Research into Plain English

Independent research from companies and governments around the world continues to demonstrate that clear writing in plain English produces significant business benefits. Real examples:

New manual in Plain English saved 125 support calls a month.

"In one test, customers who used the clearly written manual in plain English made about 125 fewer calls a month than customers who used the old manual." - Cathy J. Spencer & Diana Kilbourn Yates, A Good User's Guide Means Fewer Support Calls and Lower Support Costs, 42 Technical Comm. 52 (1995).

British Telecom complaints down by 25% by using Plain English.

British Telecom was receiving almost a million inquiries a year from customers about their phone bills. Specialists "worked with BT to organize information logically--providing summary billing information on the first page and more detail on follow-on pages. [The revisions] grouped charges, explained them in clear, plain English, and provided easy-to-understand calculations."

With the new bill, customer complaints and inquiries fell by 25%. Also, customers paid the new bill more promptly, improving cash flow and reducing the cost of collecting overdue bills.

Royal Mail saved £1/2 million in 9 months by using Plain English.

Before plain English specialists clarified a redirection-of-mail form for Royal Mail UK, there was an 87% error rate when customers filled it out. Royal Mail was spending over £10,000 a week dealing with complaints and reprocessing incorrect forms.

The new form in plain English reduced the error rate dramatically, saving Royal Mail £500,000 in the next nine months.

US Navy could save $250 to $350 million a year by using Plain English.

A 1989 study of naval officers who read a business memo that was written either in a plain English style or in a bureaucratic style. Officers who read the plain English memo, besides having significantly higher comprehension, took 17% to 23% less time to read it and felt less need to re-read it.

Even more staggering are the savings if all naval personnel (not just officers) read plain English documents: $250 to $350 million a year! - James Suchan & Robert Colucci, The High Cost of Bureaucratic Written Communications, 34 Business Communication 68 (1991).

FCC Enquiry staff reassigned by using Plain English.

"When the FCC's regulations for CB radios were written in legalese, the agency needed five full-time staff members to answer questions from the public.

In 1977/78, the FCC rewrote the regulations in plain English and was able to reassign the five staff members." - Plain English Language Pays, Simply Stated No. 63 (Document Design Centre), Feb. 1986