Writing Techniques and How to Use them for Business Communication

Business communications is a messy business. You can ask technical support services staff, and they’d tell you all about it—they literally make a living out of communicating and they know how any one word, one inflection, and one email could make or break their careers. Whether for corporate exchanges for business, and voice account or outsource chat support, communication is a double-edged sword that agents and executives must know how to use correctly.

One of the main goals of literature is to make information more easily understandable and relatable through the use of different literary devices. Here are some writing techniques and literary devices that could help your business communicate better.

Analogy

Some information are very hard to explain and this is commonly observed with older generations trying to grasp new technology. Even the younger generation might find it difficult to understand very technical concepts.

This is where analogy is helpful. Analogy is a literary device that helps establish a relationship of two concepts that are different in nature but similar in application. For example, if you are a technical support service staff who’s trying to explain the difference between Virtual Reality (VR) and Augmented Reality (AR), you can use the analogy of a movie—VR is like a movie but you’re a part of it while AR is like having characters from a movie jump from the screen onto the real world!

What makes analogy very helpful is that it makes information that is hard to understand more accessible by using common and relatable experiences for comparison.

Typographical Blackmail

Typographical blackmail is a method of forcing people to focus on certain parts of a content. This is mostly done by turning certain parts of a content bold or italicized so that said parts must be content have a higher likelihood of being seen. Here’s an example:

All employees are requested to be at the Assembly Area at 3:00 PM today for the important seminar on gender sensitivity. Thank you!

This is especially helpful for outsource chat support agents but you actually do not need to blackmail text; if you must, make sure to give emphasis on only important facts because the wrong blackmail can send a bad message.

All employees are requested to be at the Assembly Area at 3:00 PM today for the important seminar on gender sensitivity. Thank you!

Here, you can see that the tone takes a more authoritative and even threatening tone because it highlighted the intended audience and a vague adjective instead. The italicized “you” towards the end also makes the statement sound arrogant or sarcastic.

Euphemism, Exaggeration, and Calling things as They Are

Euphemism and exaggeration are the opposite poles when it comes to describing things. You may use euphemism to address sensitive matters like saying “you may want to check other alternative for the mean time while we try to sort out your request for a discount” when talking to a client who you want to turn down because they really can’t afford to sign with your business.

Exaggeration is effective to elevate an already intense moment, ie, meeting a client for the first time, saying thank you, or fixing an issue. For example, we say “I’m so glad to finally meet you after a number of email exchanges” after meeting a client or say “it was totally my pleasure to help you sort your inquiry out.”


Sometimes technical support services providers just have to hand it to who they’re talking to and call things as they are. This is mostly true for apologies, as making a euphemism (I’m sorry about the incident) or an exaggeration (I’m very, very sorry about the incident) might make you sound insincere. It’s better to say sorry and be specific as to what you are saying sorry about.