In a previous post, I analyzed a puerile error message on the web site of a university library. In today’s post, I analyze a puerile error message on the web site of a for-profit company, Ragan Communications:
Ragan.com is currently being redesigned. The page you have requested is unavailable.
Please pardon our dust. Ragan.com is currently being redesigned (or is already designed but hiding somewhere). Or there are so many customers buying our awesome products that they have crashed the servers…or something.
Please visit the new www.Ragan.com and take a look around. If you still can’t find what you’re looking for, you can email us at [an address].
If you need customer service, please dial [an 800 number].
Analysis
I’ll analyze the message by showing a bit of text and then, in brackets, how a prospective customer may (silently) react to that bit; then show the next bit and so on.
Ragan.com is currently being redesigned. The page you have requested is unavailable.
[OK.]
Please pardon our dust.
[I appreciate the apology, but I would be more inclined to believe it was sincere if it had referred to my inconvenience instead of to dust, a casually inserted shopworn metaphor that looks to me like someone’s sophomoric attempt to look clever.]
Ragan.com is currently being redesigned
[You said that before.]
(or is already designed but hiding somewhere).
[Do you mean to say that (1) Ragan Communications doesn’t know the status of its own site-redesign project; or (2) it does know the status but did not care enough about me (a prospect) to tell me about it; or (3) the fellow who writes the error messages is a narcissistic techie who uses error messages as an outlet for his poetic soul, and no adult employee edits him?]
Or there are so many customers buying our awesome products
[The use of the adjective awesome creates an almost certainly false product claim. It may be that the adolescent who wrote this error message doesn’t know what awesome means but makes up for it by using it promiscuously.]
that they have crashed the servers…or something.
[That flippant or something reminds me of the adolescent whatever. It strengthens my belief that the company is not sincere in this apology.]
Please visit the new www.Ragan.com and take a look around.
[No, thanks.]
If you still can’t find what you’re looking for, you can email us at [an address].
If you need customer service, please dial [an 800 number].
(The prospect didn’t read this part; he went looking for another web site where he could purchase what he had originally intended to purchase from Ragan Communications.)*
A grown-up version
The page you requested is unavailable because Ragan.com is currently being redesigned. We are sorry to have inconvenienced you.
Please visit the new www.Ragan.com and take a look around. If you still can’t find what you’re looking for, please email us at [an address].
If you need customer service, please dial [an 800 number].
The Takeaway: Every bit of bad copy your company publishes can detract from the effect of its marketing efforts. Even if your marcoms don’t sound like adolescents, other employees who reach the public may sound distinctly adolescent. Find these employees and put a literate adult in charge of editing what they write.
See disclaimer.
*I am not singling out Ragan.com for puerile error messages. One observes this self-destructive behavior on many web sites.
Thursday, March 10, 2011
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"the fellow who writes the error messages is a narcissistic techie who uses error messages as an outlet for his poetic soul"
ReplyDeleteI want to believe that was the best part of his day that day.
Good suggestions, but I wonder if this type of writing is dependent on the type of products they sell. For example, www.woot.com uses this type of tone (juvenile, poetic, etc) for the kind of audience they wish to attract? If so, then this toneis fine.
ReplyDeleteHowever, if the error message with that language is only found in the message itself and no where else, then I agree that the copy writer-to-be should stick with a professional tone.