Author: 209english

The positive and courteous expression is very tame and friendly. This voice is most commonly called the customer service voice and we all use it, especially in professions where you directly work with customers. “What do you want.” becomes “What can I get started for you today?” or “How may I help you today?”. It is most commonly identified by: phrases being led by “Sorry”, introductions and goodbyes, “thank you” conclusions and the like. Any customer support email or call center would be another good source for formatting and examples.

In the modern seemingly narcissistic time there is a large importance placed on how something explicitly is for you. Businesses want to show why you need something or how you need to do something. This is the “you view” that is addressed in Chapter 2 and is the easiest to identify because it is typified by the use of the most important word “you”.

In an example, if a company wants to get a customer to upgrade their service package; the company would look aggressive to just say “Upgrade your service package” and instead would rather highlight the benefits that the new package has and tailor those benefits to the purchasee. This became very apparent when we were told to come up with examples in class and the class immediately went to adding on things that they thought were appealing on top of adding a “you” and rearranging the words rather than opting for the simpler option of just the latter.