When you provide a service to clients, you are looked upon as “the pro” in your industry. You have the education or experience that gives you a level of insight not common to most people who come to you for guidance. Your wisdom is what makes you worth your pay rate! The more specialized the trade, the more valuable the information.
Using heavy jargon in conversation to someone unfamiliar with the terminology can sometimes come across as being cocky and cavalier or trying too hard to impress. When looking to be personable and have a positive, one-on-one relationship with customers, it is off-putting not to be “real.” There’s likely to be — at least internally — an eye roll attitude of “who is the person trying to impress? If it’s me, it’s not working.”
The value you provide in the ability to communicate with your clients makes you relatable and can help forge a better working connection. If you have all the wisdom but can’t convey it in an understandable manner, you are likely to lose clients as they look for someone who can do three things: diagnose a problem, explain the issue to you, and use their mastered skills to enact a remedy.
This can lead to more referrals. If you were sharing about a company and their skills with a friend, which type of company would you be more likely to share in a positive light?
- “This person is a genuine person who can always explain what is happening and then fix the problem.”
- “Wow, does this person know all the cool, fancy terminology and I’m so impressed by it.”
The first option is assuredly more likely to be shared.
How to Avoid Using “Jargon”
With websites and social media – since that’s our thing – there are acronyms galore! URL, SSL, SEO, HTML, CSS, HTTP, HTTPS, CTA, FTP, and ORM are examples.
To the person who just wants a good website or local business exposure, knowing what those things mean and how they work are likely not important. Using common words and visual descriptions makes you relatable, which is likely as important as your expertise.
An example of this for a website or tech support professional would be when directing a person to a specific website. Rather than telling a person to type into the Uniform Resource Locator within one’s browser or even URL, maybe describe the place at the top of the website browser where one would normally type in a website address. Not the website search that likely opens with most browsers, but the space at the very top beginning with HTTP or HTTPS. It’s not important to know that HTTP stands for Hypertext Transfer Protocol or HTTPS for Hypertext Transfer Protocol Secure. It’s just “that box at the top. The way you would normally get to a website.”
For us, a client might say, “We would like to add a ‘How did you hear about us?’” question to our Contact page. We want to know if they heard about us through TV, Radio, Internet Ad, or — just to be nostalgic — Newspaper. The internal translation within Shout It Out Design might be, “Hey, they want to add a question field with a drop down with four label options to the contact form fields as a non-required field.” That’s some simple magic that we can make happen. But to the client, we would likely word it as, “Sure, we’ll add that to the form with those options. Do you want a person to be able to pick one or more selections?” Then, we would add checkboxes for multiple selections or either radio buttons or a drop-down box if it is only a single choice desired by the client.
Or in setting up Google Ads for a client, we will ask particular questions: What do you want the ad to say? Who are you trying to reach? How do you want to know when someone shows interest? We handle the behind-the-scenes logistics of demographics, geography, key words, placement, campaigns and ad groups. When presented with the results of your ad, we’ll help clarify Impressions, Clicks, CPC (Cost per Click), and Conversions so, as a client, it’s easier to understand the value of the service and expertise provided by our team to help get maximum results for your advertising dollars spent.
The article by Forbes Magazine ”12 Ways To Improve Communications Between Your Agency And Your Clients” reiterates many of the points already discussed:
- Staying positive is key to building relationships
- Too often, teams want to show off how smart they are on a client call or in a meeting rather than asking great questions and really listening to the answers.
- When someone is essentially a “number” or just a “position,” it’s very easy to not connect in a meaningful way and also to have more negative interactions.
- When you get a feel for your clients’ day-to-day pressures, you know where they are coming from. When you have that context, it makes communication easier.
Overall, jargon can be a good thing when used properly. It is typically a quick, concise way to communicate a larger concept. But jargon is only appropriate in conversations that are peer-to-peer — when talking with someone who understands the lingo. It’s the most basic tenet of communication. Otherwise, it likely comes across as talking down to the receiver or as “puffery” where the sender is trying to sound more important and grandiose.
Our Expertise
At Shout It Out Design, we pride ourselves on being real and communicating at all levels of technical proficiency. You will hear us joke about ourselves and you will know us to be upfront and easy to communicate with. Regardless of your knowledge of websites, social media, or online advertising, don’t worry about feeling as if you don’t know the words to say. Just talk to us! We will translate your goals into actions that get results — in everyday language.
