photo credit: Jon W. Howson

From the good folks at Freelancers Union:

Each year at this time, Freelancers Union conducts its annual Survey to explore current issues affecting the independent workforce. This year, the survey is focusing on participants’ experiences in the current economic climate and their opinions about institutions that deliver health insurance and retirement benefits. Your participation is important because the information collected is a significant component of the Freelancers Union advocacy campaigns that benefit independent workers. Your responses will provide the data needed to focus on the specific aspects of these issues that are impacting you most critically. So, please take a few minutes to complete the survey, and ask your friends and colleagues to complete one too!

• A link to the announcement on our website: http://www.freelancersunion.org/news/2008/09/Annual-Survey.html

You don’t need to be a member to participate so please share the word along to other freelancing compadres, too.

]]> http://www.copywritingmaven.com/2008/09/09/freelancers-union-2008-survey/feed/ http://www.copywritingmaven.com/2008/08/14/writing-mea-culpa-customer-service-letters/ http://www.copywritingmaven.com/2008/08/14/writing-mea-culpa-customer-service-letters/#comments Thu, 14 Aug 2008 17:39:39 +0000 Roberta Rosenberg http://www.copywritingmaven.com/?p=604 Today I had to write a ‘mea culpa’ email to a customer who chewed me out because I didn’t ask her why she wanted to cancel her gift order and just accepted the cancellation without comment.

(In this case, I knew the reason was going to be a sensitive one, similar to returning a crib still in the box to the baby store. After 10 years of etailing, I learned when and when not to ask - “Is there a reason for your cancellation today?”)

My experience meant bupkis (Yiddish for ‘nothing’) because this customer needed me to ask the question so she could unload her sorrow on me. (”Lady, I’m just a retailer. I sell stuff! And now I really gotta get back to my generic subscription renewal series because I’m on deadline.”)

If customer service in this country sucks, it sucks, in small part, because we’re training consumers to anticipate bad customer service, deep suspicious grilling when trying to return or cancel an order, or worse, ‘magical’ customer service.

Why magical? Because in my mea culpa letter to the customer who felt ill-served, I actually apologized FOR NOT BEING ABLE TO READ HER MIND. I didn’t write that, of course, but that, indeed was the subtext.

When I worked in my first copywriting job, I was given the task of writing what we called the ‘Ooops” letters for customer service. I wrote mostly generic letters but occasionally had to craft them custom. I was given this task because I wrote them in a sincere and soothing manner.

My bosses loved them because I turned customer frowns upside down just like Mary Tyler Moore. I had one boss who wanted me to write his own note for him on his own father’s Father’s Day card because he didn’t like his father but didn’t want him to know.

But the nice thing about the B2B book business was that I never found myself apologizing for not having been born with supernatural powers.

Of course, I still write them with the same sincere, soothing tone. I showed my husband the original email and my reply. “Welcome to a little glimpse of my world, baby.” He said he admired my restraint. He couldn’t have done it.

But I can because, to paraphase Jon Lovitz in his over-the-top performance of the deliciously haughty, hack thespian, “I am a copywriter!”

Ok, copywriter colleagues, what’s your favorite “written through clenched teeth” piece? The floor is open. Mojitos all around.

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photo credit: katielips

In my daily post from the Judaism forum at Beliefnet.com came this interesting set of soul exercises. Having written a fair number of emails in my day — and who wouldn’t want a soul workout — this particular one seemed intriguing so I’m sharing.

Read an E-mail from God

Basically Rabbi Brian (Rabbi Brian? What kind of name is Rabbi Brian? ) posits that you imagine you open your in-box and find an e-mail with the subject line: An e-mail from God. (or G-d for us Hebraic types.)

Now making the giant leap that this email wouldn’t have been sent directly to your SPAM box … AND … depending on the identity of the email’s sender, what do you imagine the message would offer?

• Praise?
• Condemnation?
• An answer to a question that you’ve been asking?
• Advice?
• A forwarded joke? (would it be a dirty joke or uplifting?)
• What?

And once the woo-woo Twilight Zone music in your head stopped, how would you reply, if at all? (Or would you simply ask God for HIS (for argument’s sake) Twitter name so you could answer in short, 140-max character tweets?)

After a few hours of cleaning the garage today, I’d be hoping MY email from G-d would answer my prayer and tell me that I’m next in line to win the Mega Millions - just a few million because there’s no need to be greedy. My reply - a simple, elegant - THANK YOU, LORD and recite the Shema and a Shehechiyanu.

Barring that, I’d take the joke and hope that it’s funny. That way, I could send back a ROFL and a big

So, how about you?

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photo credit: frotzed2

I was heartened to see how many folks took the time to comment on my original post about holding firm to our value.

That’s why I think, perhaps anyway, we’ll find some small comfort in the knowledge that we are not alone in our endless effort to keep our value proposition from sliding away.

Consider these examples:

From the programming/coding world:

Hey, so, we aren’t really prepared to pay. I mean there isn’t that much to it, it’s just a PHP website with a MySql database, I was hoping you could just throw it together as a favor. Oh well, thanks anyway…

From the wacky, zany world of entertainment:

If you’re a writer (or an artist or even an actor), folks are always trying to get you to write, draw or act for no money.

I know I felt loads better reading these posts and essays. I’m sure you will, too.

Now as serendipity would have it, a few days later (or so) Michel Fortin wrote How to Negotiate Better Fees. What you should know upfront?

“The customers who are willing to pay you the least will always demand the most.”

My addition to this spot-on axiom?

Clients who know the least about marketing and the marketing process will be the hardest to satisfy and be convinced of your value.

And yet we soldier on…

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photo credit: Zawezome

As the Maven fans know, I teach an online copywriting course for Accelerated Training Services. The course focuses primarily on novice copywriters - folks looking to make a career change or perhaps strengthen a marketing skill set or two.

One of the first assignments I have students students prepare is a short, 50-word essay on what being (or becoming) a copywriter means to them. Generally speaking what I get back are desires for good income, flexibility, more free time (not sure about this one ), etc.

When I first became a junior copywriter, copywriting meant excitement, challenge and a paycheck.

I loved crafting a message, sending it to a mailing list, and counting the responses a few weeks later. (I still love “counting the cards” as my treat for completing a marketing project.)

20 years ago when I went solo, copywriting was my ticket to putting myself and my talents out there to see who would “bite.”

I enjoy playing “52 card pick-up” with my work and personal life every once in a while to keep from going stale and sliding along on a gentle wave of mindless contentment. So ego, delusional arrogance, and the chance at more than a paycheck, were the prizes I lusted after.

Today, copywriting has given me the skills to move into brand new directions and media that didn’t even exist 20, 15, 5 - or even one year ago.

In fact, I’ve found those precise DM fundamentals - write conversationally, write beyond the product to the promise, write to the reader’s self-interest, be a solution to their problem, etc. - are even more relevant now than when I was still banging away on my Selectric for a 99% direct mail-centric promotion mix.

From websites to blogs to Twitter (which I’m still mulling over), copywriting remains my most important skill as a business owner looking to maintain/grow her business.

(And yes, I still like the idea that I have eliminated at least layer of bureacracy in my work life and still make more than a paycheck with the flexibility to do the wife/mom thing. )

How about you?

What does/has being a copywriter or other marcomm-type writer person meant for you? If you could do it over, would you still be a copywriter or want to pursue the field today … and why?

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