Cost
Benefits: ROI
If we
want to learn to drive, we take lessons. If we want
to learn to play the piano, we take lessons. If
we want to learn anything new, we take lessons -
unless you want to spend a very long time over it!
So it makes sense, that if you want to learn how
to write good documentation, you take lessons.
This
1-day Technical Writing Course teaches you the essentials
of writing professional documentation. And it pays
off! It helps you sell your products / services;
it reduces complaints & support calls; and it improves
your company image.

Learn how to Improve the Way you Write
If you struggle with documentation, then you need to know the Easy Way to Write.
This course shows you the correct approach to
Technical Writing; how to plan the documentation
in minutes, so that you include all the relevant material; and
how to write it so that your readers will understand
you.
So, do something about it. This Technical Writing
Course can really improve the way your staff write documentation. Learn the essentials in just One
Day - which is not a lot to take out of your work
schedule.

Improve your Company Image
Book a Technical Writing Course so that you can
produce consistent, well-written manuals and
help guides.
-
Show that you mean business.
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Show that you care for your customers.
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Show that you want them to get the very best out
of your product/service.
Company image helps you to win orders.

£ Reduce the Cost of your Support Calls
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Good documentation reduces complaints because
customers can find the answers without phoning
your help desk.
-
Proper search facilities mean they
can find information easily.
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Correct use of language means they can understand
what it says.
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This can reduce your support overheads considerably.

£ Improve your Sales with better documentation
A Help file or Manual that impresses people is
a
Sales Aid. Good documentation shows that
you care about your customers. Find out how to write
correctly with our Technical Writing Course; then
you can give your prospects peace of mind about
buying from you, and turn them into customers.
£ Promote user self-training
"It's great. I give new staff
one module to learn, and they are moving on to the
next by themselves!"
- Sheena W. Team Leader, Major International Pensions
Provider.
Learn how to create and structure Help files and Manuals, so
that readers can teach themselves how to use your product
/ service; or carry out procedures correctly, etc.
This adds value because it saves considerably
on
one-on-one training of new staff.

Here are some of the benefits of learning
the correct way to write "clear English"
£ New manual in plain Language 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 enquiries 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 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
When you move to a new address,
you complete a redirection-of-mail form for
Royal Mail.
The old form was so confusing
that there was an 87% error rate when customers
filled it in. This cost Royal Mail about £10,000
a week trying to sort out the problems caused.
Plain English specialists redesigned the form
using plain English, and this substantially reduced the error
rate, saving Royal Mail £500,000 in
the next nine months.

$ US Navy could save $250 to $350 million a
year by using plain language
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.
If the plain language were used to communicating
with all naval
personnel (not just officers), it would save $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 language
"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
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